Smoke rises from the Azovstal Metallurgical Complex in Mariupol, government territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, east of Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, May 5, 2022.
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Smoke rises from the Azovstal Metallurgical Complex in Mariupol, government territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, east of Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday, May 5, 2022.
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LVIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian fighters battling Russian forces in tunnels beneath Mariupol’s massive steel mill have refused to surrender in the face of relentless attacks, with the wife of one only Huy said they swore to “stand to the end.”
The battle, at the last stronghold of the strategic Ukrainian port city left in ruins by the onslaught of Russia, turned increasingly desperate on Thursday.
“They won’t surrender,” Kateryna Prokopenko said after talking on the phone with her husband, a leader of the steel mill defenders. “They just hope for a miracle.”
She said her husband, Azov Regiment Denys Prokopenko, told her he would love her forever.
“I’m going crazy over this. It seemed like goodbye,” she said.
The bloody battle comes amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to present the Russian people a victory on the battlefield – or declare an escalation of war – on Victory Day on Monday. . Victory Day is the largest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar, marking the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
According to the most recent Russian estimate, some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters have been locked in the maze of tunnels and bunkers beneath Mariupol’s sprawling Azovstal steel mills. Several hundred civilians were also trapped there.
“There were many wounded (fighters), but they did not surrender,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Thursday in his nightly video speech. “They’re holding their place.”
He said the attack was preventing the evacuation of the remaining civilians.
“Just imagine this hell! And there are children there,” he said. “Over two months of shelling, constant bombing, constant death.”
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, said the Russians managed to get inside with the help of an electrician who knew the layout.
“He showed them the underground tunnels leading to the factory,” Gerashchenko said in a video posted late Wednesday. “Yesterday, the Russians began to break into these tunnels, using the information they received from the traitor.”
The Kremlin denies its troops are storming the factory.
City workers attach the Russian flag to a pole in preparation for the 77th anniversary of victory in World War II in Mariupol, government territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, May 5, 2022.
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City workers attach the Russian flag to a pole in preparation for the 77th anniversary of victory in World War II in Mariupol, government territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, May 5, 2022.
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The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allowing Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula it captured from Ukraine in 2014, and freeing up troops to fight in those areas. elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin says is now its main target.
Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, pleaded on Ukrainian television to evacuate civilians and wounded fighter jets from the steel plant, saying the soldiers “died in agony due to the death of the soldiers.” not receive appropriate treatment.”
The Kremlin asked the army to surrender. They refused. Russia also accused it of preventing civilians from leaving.
The head of the United Nations said another attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and the factory was underway. “We must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hells,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
More than 100 civilians were rescued from steel mills over the weekend. But many previous attempts to open safe corridors from Mariupol have failed, with Ukraine blaming Russian shelling and firing.
Meanwhile, 10 weeks after the brutal war, the Ukrainian military announced it had recaptured some areas in the south and repelled other attacks in the east, scuttling Putin’s ambitions after he abandoned the attempt to capture Kyiv. Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting village by village.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces were only making “enjoyable” progress in the Donbas.
The head of Britain’s armed forces, Chief of Defense Staff Tony Radakin, said Mr Putin was “trying to quickly achieve tactical victory” before Victory Day. However, he said Russian forces were struggling to gain momentum.
On Thursday, a US official said the US had shared intelligence with Ukraine about the location of a Russian flagship before the mid-April attack that caused it to sink, one of the most significant setbacks. of Moscow during the war.
The official said the US had provided “a wide range of intelligence” including the location of the warships. The official said the decision to target the Moscow missile cruiser was entirely Ukraine’s decision.
Fearing new attacks around Victory Day, the mayor of the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk has urged residents to leave the countryside for the long weekend and warned them not to gather in public places. add.
And the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a major transit point for evacuees from Mariupol, announced a curfew from Sunday evening to Tuesday morning.
A girl looks through a car window as her family arrives in Mariupol at a center for displaced people in Zaporizhia, Ukraine, Thursday, May 5, 2022.
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A girl looks through a car window as her family arrives in Mariupol at a center for displaced people in Zaporizhia, Ukraine, Thursday, May 5, 2022.
Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Mariupol, which had a population of more than 400,000 before the war, became a symbol of the misery caused by the war. The siege of the city probably left 100,000 civilians stranded with little food, water, medicine, or heat.
As the battle raged there, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said Thursday’s Russian bombardment hit dozens of Ukrainian military targets, including troop concentration zones. to the east, a battery of artillery batteries near the eastern settlement of Zarozhne and rocket launchers near the southern city. by Mykolaiv.
Ukrainian officials say five people have been killed and dozens injured in shelling on cities in the Donbas over the past 24 hours.
Ukrainian forces say they have made some gains on the borders of the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv and repelled 11 Russian attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas.
Mr Zelenskyy said the war had ravaged the country’s medical infrastructure in a video link to a charity event in the UK. Nearly 400 healthcare facilities were damaged or destroyed, he said.
“There is simply a dire situation regarding access to medical services and medicines,” he said. “Even the simplest drugs are lacking.”
With the challenge of demining and post-war reconstruction, Zelenskyy announced the launch of a global fundraising platform called United24.
At the same time, Poland hosted an international donor conference to mobilize $6.5 billion in humanitarian aid. The gathering was attended by prime ministers and ambassadors from many European countries, as well as representatives from more distant countries and a number of businesses.
In addition, a Ukrainian cabinet body has begun developing proposals for a comprehensive post-war reconstruction plan, while Zelenskyy has also urged Western allies to come up with a similar program. Marshall Plan post-World War II to help Ukraine rebuild.
