Ukraine war: Russia launches fresh bombardment of Mariupol

Russia is attempting to storm the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol after heavy bombing overnight which killed two civilians, the Ukrainian defenders have said. 

Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov battalion which is holed up inside the plant, said Russia spent all night bombing and is now trying to storm the complex using armoured vehicles, tanks, boats and ‘a large number of infantry’. 

Palamar said two women were killed in the bombardment with another ten injured, and called for an immediate ceasefire so hundreds of civilians still stuck inside the plant can be evacuated.

Moscow acknowledged bombing Azovstal but said its troops were taking out new defensive positions set up during a ceasefire at the weekend. 

Commanders made no mention of storming the plant, after Putin vowed last month that the operation had been called off to preserve the lives of his troops.

Ukrainian defenders say Russia spent all night bombing the steel plant (interior damage, pictured) and are now trying to storm inside

The Azovstal steel plant is the last holdout of Ukrainian resistance in a city that is otherwise controlled by Moscow’s forces and key to their campaign in Ukraine’s east.

The UN confirmed today that it had helped to evacuate 101 people – mostly women and children – from the plant last week during a five-day operation.

It said ‘most’ of those people arrived in the city of Zaporizhzhia, 125 miles from Mariupol through Russian-held territory, today – though some had decided to remain in occupied areas.

The BBC reported that 156 people arrived in Zaporizhzhia as part of a convoy,  which had grown in size as people from outside the steel works joined en route.

Images and video of those arrivals showed some people weeping as others – including a disabled man – were helped off buses to be given medical care. 

Mariupol has come to symbolize the human misery inflicted by the war. 

A Russian siege has trapped civilians with little access to food, water and electricity, as Moscow’s forces pounded the city to rubble. 

The plant – where about 1,000 civilians sought shelter in a warren of underground bunkers along with some 2,000 fighters who have refused to surrender – has particularly transfixed the outside world.

Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC that high-level negotiations were underway among Ukraine, Russia and international organizations on evacuating more people.

A Russian rocket artillery truck opens fire on the Azovstal complex, where the last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol are holed up

Moscow’s commanders have not mentioned storming the complex, and instead say they are destroying new defences set up during a ceasefire at the weekend

101 civilians – mostly women and children – were evacuated from the Azovstal steel works at the weekend and today arrived in Zaporizhzhia (pictured)

But Russian forces and their allies resumed strikes on the plant on Tuesday. Vadim Astafyev, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said that Ukrainian fighters at the plant used the cease-fire that allowed civilians to flee to take up new positions.

They ‘came out of the basements, took up firing positions on the territory and in the buildings of the plant,’ he said. Russian troops along with the Moscow-backed separatist forces used ‘artillery and aircraft … to destroy these firing positions.’

After failing to take Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, Russia withdrew some of its forces and then said it would switch its focus to Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbas. Mariupol lies in the region, and its capture would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas.

Michael Carpenter, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said Monday that the U.S. believes the Kremlin plans to annex much of eastern Ukraine and recognize the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic. Neither move would be recognized by the United States or its allies, he said.

Russia is planning to hold sham referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbas that would ‘try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy’ and attach the entities to Russia, Carpenter said. He also said there were signs that Russia would engineer an independence vote in Kherson.

Mayors and local legislators there have been abducted, internet and cellphone service has been severed and a Russian school curriculum will soon be imposed, Carpenter said. Ukraine’s government says Russia has introduced its ruble as currency there.

Getting a full picture of the unfolding battle in the east has been difficult because airstrikes and artillery barrages have made it extremely dangerous for reporters to move around. Both Ukraine and the Moscow-backed rebels fighting in the east have introduced tight restrictions on reporting.

But so far, Russia’s troops and their allied separatist forces appear to have made only minor gains, taking several small towns as they try to advance in relatively small groups against staunch Ukrainian resistance.

Women and children evacuated from Mariupol arrive in Zaporizhzhia, 125 miles to the west, after a weekend ceasefire allowed them to flee

A family who managed to flee from Mariupol arrives in Zaporizhzhia, where reception centres for those displaced by the fighting have been set up

A father with children in the back of his car – and a sign on the side reading ‘kids’ in Russian – arrives safely at a reception centre in Zaporizhzhia

Hryhorii, a member of the Ukrainian military hugs his wife Oksana who he had not seen for nearly a year, after she fled from a Russian-occupied village to Zaporizhzhia

: A woman from Mariupol cries after arriving at an evacuation point in Zaporizhzhia

In its daily Twitter statement on the war, the British military said Tuesday it believes the Russian military is now ‘significantly weaker’ after suffering losses in its war on Ukraine.

‘Recovery from this will be exacerbated by sanctions,’ the ministry said. ‘Failures both in strategic planning and operational execution have left it unable to translate numerical strength into decisive advantage.’

Ukraine’s resistance has been significantly bolstered by Western arms, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday announced a 300 million pounds ($375 million) in new military aid – including radar, drones and armored vehicles.

In a speech delivered remotely to Ukraine’s parliament, he echoed the words of Britain’s World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he lauded the country’s defiant response to the Russian invasion.

‘The so-called irresistible force of Putin’s war machine has broken on the immoveable object of Ukrainian patriotism and love of country,’ he said. ‘This is Ukraine’s finest hour, that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come.’

Pope Francis was quoted Tuesday in an Italian newspaper as saying that he offered to travel to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin about three weeks into the invasion. The pontiff told Corriere della Sera that he has not received a response.

On Monday, Ukraine said Russia struck a strategic road and rail bridge west of Odesa, a major Black Sea port. The bridge was heavily damaged in previous Russian strikes, and its destruction would cut a supply route for weapons and other cargo from neighboring Romania.

Evacuees from the Azovstal steel plant hug each-other as they are evacuated from Mariupol to Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk

A convoy of evacuation buses heading from Mariupol into Russian-held territories in Donetsk is seen in an image released by the Kremlin

A satellite image captured by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press showed the bridge still standing as of noon Monday.

Another image, taken Monday, showed nearly 50 Russian military helicopters at Stary Oskol, a Russian base close to the Ukrainian border and some 175 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Highlighting the toll of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that at least 220 Ukrainian children have been killed by the Russian army since the war began, and 1,570 educational institutions have been destroyed or damaged. He also noted that some people trying to escape the fighting are afraid they’ll be taken to Russia or Russian-controlled areas.

More than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, have been taken from Ukraine to Russia, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday, according to state-owned news agency TASS. Defense Ministry official Mikhail Mizintsev said that number included 11,550 people in the previous 24 hours, ‘without the participation of the Ukrainian authorities.’

Zelenskyy said that the U.N. assured him people fleeing Mariupol would be allowed to go to areas his government controls.

Separate from the official evacuations, some Mariupol residents left on their own, often in damaged private cars.

As sunset approached Monday, Mariupol resident Yaroslav Dmytryshyn rattled up to a reception center in Zaporizhzhia in a car with a back seat full of youngsters and two signs taped to the back window: ‘Children’ and ‘Little ones.’

‘I can’t believe we survived,’ he said, looking worn but in good spirits after two days on the road.

‘There is no Mariupol whatsoever,? he said. ‘Someone needs to rebuild it, and it will take millions of tons of gold.’