Pro-Russian forces said 50 more people were evacuated on Saturday from the besieged Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, where scores of civilians have been trapped for weeks alongside Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Soviet-era plant.
The defence headquarters of Russian-backed Donetsk separatists said on Telegram that a total of 176 civilians had now been evacuated from the sprawling, bombed-out steelworks.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
About 50 civilians had been moved on Friday from the plant to a reception centre in nearby Bezimenne, in territory held by the separatists, whose forces are fighting alongside Russian troops to expand their control of large parts of eastern Ukraine. Dozens of civilians were also evacuated last weekend.
“Today, May 7, 50 people were evacuated from the territory of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol,” the separatists said.
Mariupol has endured the most destructive bombardment of the 10-week-old war. The plant is the last part of the city – a strategic southern port on the Azov sea – still in the hands of Ukrainian fighters. Scores of civilians including women and children have been trapped for weeks alongside them with little food, water or medicine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late-night video address on Friday that Ukraine was working on a diplomatic effort to save defenders barricaded inside the steelworks. It was unclear how many Ukrainian fighters remained there.
The defenders have vowed not to surrender. Ukrainian officials fear Russian forces want to wipe them out by Monday, in time for Moscow’s commemorations of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.
Evacuations of civilians from the Azovstal plant brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) began last weekend. But they were halted during the week by renewed fighting.
The city’s mayor estimated earlier this week that 200 civilians were trapped at the plant. It was unclear how many remained.
President Vladimir Putin declared victory in Mariupol on April 21, ordered the plant sealed off and called for Ukrainian forces inside to disarm. But Russia later resumed its assault on the plant.
Asked about plans for Russia to mark Monday’s anniversary in parts of Ukraine it holds, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday “The time will come to mark Victory Day in Mariupol.”
BATTLE FOR THE EAST
Mariupol, which lies between the Crimea Peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014 and parts of eastern Ukraine taken by Russia-backed separatists that year, is key to linking up the two Russian-held territories and blocking Ukrainian exports.
Ukraine’s general staff said on Saturday the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine aimed to establish full control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and maintain the land corridor between these territories and Crimea.
Russian forces also shelled settlements in the northeast, near Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv. The attacks blew up three road bridges in order to slow down counter-offensive actions by the Ukrainian forces, the general staff said.
Russia said it destroyed a large stockpile of military equipment from the United States and European countries near the Bohodukhiv railway station in the Kharkiv region.
The defence ministry said it had hit 18 Ukrainian military facilities overnight, including three ammunition depots in Dachne, near the southern port city of Odesa.
Ukraine forces on Saturday released footage they said showed drone strikes on a Russian landing craft vessel and a building which housed missiles on Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, a speck of land south of Odesa. It did not say when the strike happened.
Air-launched Russian missiles hit two locations near the Russian border in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region on Saturday, local governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyi said.
It was not possible to independently verify either side’s statements about battlefield events.
DRONE STRIKES IN MOLDOVA
Russia’s lower house of parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin on Saturday accused Washington of coordinating military operations in Ukraine, which he said amounted to direct U.S. involvement in military action against Russia.
U.S. officials have said the United States has provided intelligence to Ukraine to help counter the Russian assault, but have denied this intelligence includes precise targeting data.
A senior Russian commander said last month Russia planned to take full control of southern Ukraine and this would improve Russian access to Transdniestria, a breakaway region of Moldova.
Pro-Russian separatists in Moldova said on Saturday that Transdniestria was hit four times by suspected drones overnight near the Ukrainian border. Nearly two weeks of similar reported incidents in Transdniestria have raised international alarm that the Ukraine war could spread over the frontier.
Ukraine has repeatedly denied any blame for the incidents, saying it believes Russia is staging the attacks to provoke war. Moscow, too, has denied blame. Read full story
In the Kharkiv region, governor Oleh Sinegubov reported three shelling attacks overnight on Kharkiv city and in the village of Skovorodinyvka, which caused a fire that nearly destroyed the Hryhoriy Skovoroda Literary Memorial Museum.
Skovoroda was a philosopher in the 1700s. Sinegubov said the museum’s collection was not damaged as it had been moved to a safer place.
“The occupiers can destroy the museum where Hryhoriy Skovoroda worked for the last years of his life and where he was buried. But they will not destroy our memory and our values,” Sinegubov said in a social media post.
Moscow calls its actions since Feb. 24 a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of what it calls anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West. Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war.
REUTERS