Smoke rises above the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol on April 29, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine.
Andrey Borodulin / AFP via Getty Images
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Andrey Borodulin / AFP via Getty Images
Smoke rises above the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol on April 29, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine.
Andrey Borodulin / AFP via Getty Images
The final match for the Ukrainian city of Mariupol began this week as Russian forces entered Azovstal hulking steel mill in the besieged city center, where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians had been hiding for weeks.
“Fighting and bloody battles are taking place,” Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukrainian forces inside the factory, said in a video published Thursday on Telegram.
The Azovstal plant became the focus of the battle for Mariupol. Ukrainian officials say that Russian forces entered Azovstal for the first time on Tuesday – just days after about 150 civilians was evacuated in a convoy organized by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
With the current fighting inside the factory, efforts to evacuate the remaining civilians have been intensified.
“We are negotiating and we hope to continue the rescue of people from Azovstal, from Mariupol. There are still civilians. Women, children,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement. his overnight address on Thursday.
Zelenskyy has called on Russia to commit to a longer ceasefire to evacuate civilians. He said: “It takes time to get people out of those basements, out of underground shelters. In the current conditions, we can’t use special equipment to clear debris. “.
What is Azovstal Steel Plant?
First put into operation in 1933, Azovstal is one of the largest metalworks in Europe. For decades, it was key to the Soviet railway system and shipbuilding efforts. It was privatized in the 1990s after Ukraine’s independence.
The massive complex of warehouses, railroad tracks, and powerful industrial furnaces spans four square miles along Mariupol’s shoreline, across the river from the city’s central district. According to company documents, before the invasion, the factory employed more than 10,000 people.
Buried beneath the factory is a network of bunkers and tunnels dating back to the Soviet era. For weeks, these underground spaces became shelters for hundreds of civilians, many of them Azovstal employees and members of their families.
Evacuees described the tunnels as a giant maze, “like a big city”, too dark and confusing to navigate. “You can’t see what’s in front of you, so you stay where you know,” said Maiia Krylova, 14, who evacuated this week to Zaporizhzhia with her mother, Anna.
Azovstal was a battlefield before. German forces attacked the factory during World War II. In 2014, employees at the plant took shelter in underground bunkers as separatists tried to capture Mariupol.
Damaged Azovstal plant, in commercial satellite images on April 29.
Satellite images © 2022 Maxar Technologies
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Satellite images © 2022 Maxar Technologies
Damaged Azovstal plant, in commercial satellite images on April 29.
Satellite images © 2022 Maxar Technologies
How did Azovstal come to be at the center of the battle for Mariupol?
City of Mariupol has been a focal point of the Russian army at the outset of their invasion. Mariupol’s location, on the Ukrainian coast of the Sea of Azov between the Russian border and the Crimean Peninsula, makes the city a strategic solution for Russia.
Russian forces reached Mariupol just days after the invasion began on 24 February and they besieged the city in early March.
Through weeks of intense street fighting and relentless shelling, Russia pushed Ukrainian forces further and further back until they were trapped inside the Azovstal factory, with their backs to the coast without warning. nowhere else to retreat.
On April 21, Russian military officials declared victory in Mariupol after capturing the rest of the city. Ukraine did not surrender.
Evacuees who had been sheltering there for weeks as fighting broke out around them described their experience to NPR.
“The last days we were there, I believed the steel mill would fall on us. How could it withstand this kind of bomb?” Alex Dybko, an English teacher, sheltered in the factory for weeks with his wife and son before evacuating to Zaporizhzhia this week.
Evacuees from Mariupol arrive in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday.
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Evacuees from Mariupol arrive in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday.
Chris McGrath / Getty Images
How is the situation there now?
According to estimates by Ukrainian authorities, hundreds of civilians are still trapped inside the factory along with about 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers. People inside the factory said that stores of food, drinking water, medical supplies and hygiene products are all running out.
Stanislav Kerod, a naval border guard inside the factory, tell NPR This week the situation has been “catastrophic.”
“Things are getting worse every day. We can’t do anything about it because we’re stuck. No one can bring us any form of aid,” he said. “We are trying to help civilians with food and medicine. We will not let them go hungry and fight to survive. But we can only share what we have.”
It is not clear when the remaining civilians will be evacuated. Ukrainian military officials have also called for the safe transportation of wounded soldiers and dead bodies outside Mariupol.
“Give us a chance to pick up the bodies of the dead soldiers so the Ukrainian people can say goodbye to their heroes,” Palamar deputy commander said on Thursday.
People wait for supplies outside a shopping center in Mariupol, in a commercial satellite photo taken on April 29.
Satellite images © 2022 Maxar Technologies
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Satellite images © 2022 Maxar Technologies
People wait for supplies outside a shopping center in Mariupol, in a commercial satellite photo taken on April 29.
Satellite images © 2022 Maxar Technologies
What about the rest of Mariupol?
Russia hopes to gain full control of Mariupol on May 9, a symbolic important day on which Russia celebrates the day the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany, military analysts say. Institute for War Studies.
Ukrainian officials say about 100,000 civilians remain in the city, home to about 430,000 residents before the war.
Departure is dangerous and logistically difficult, aid agencies and evacuees said: shelling is a constant threat, roads and bridges are blocked or destroyed, and many people stay without transportation.
Despite the difficulties, aid agencies said they were still evacuating people.
ICRC President Peter Maurer said: “It is a tremendous relief that some of the civilians who have suffered for weeks are now out. in a statement this week. “The ICRC has not forgotten those who are still there, as well as those in other areas affected by the war or who are in serious humanitarian need, wherever they are. We will not spare any. any attempt to reach them.”
Local officials say more than 20,000 civilians have died in Mariupol. The damage to the city was enormous.
US officials believe Russia may be looking to annex the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine by mid-May. Mariupol is part of the Donetsk oblast.
“We believe the Kremlin may be trying to organize fake referendums to try to add to the legitimacy of democracy or elections. This is in the Kremlin’s handbook,” Michael Carpenter said. , the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told reporters on Monday.
Additional reporting by Hanna Palamarenko in Zaporizhzhia and Iryna Matviyishyn in Kyiv.
