MARIUPOL DEFENDERS FACE FINAL SHOWDOWN WITH RUSSIAN INVADERS

Sun 08 May 2022:

President Volodymyr Zelensky is also set to hold talks with G7 leaders via video conference to discuss the situation in his country, which fears a renewed intensity to Moscow’s offensive after the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks.

The complex — the final pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the devastated port city — has taken on a symbolic value in the war, with the last soldiers holed up in its sprawling network of underground tunnels and bunkers.

Taking full control of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and regions run by pro-Russian separatists in the east.

“The enemy is trying to finish off the defenders of Azovstal, they are trying to do it before May 9 to give (Russian President) Vladimir Putin a gift,” Oleksiy Arestovych, an aide to Ukraine’s president, said.

Ukraine’s far-right Azov battalion, leading the defence at the steelworks, said one of its fighters had been killed and six wounded when Russian forces opened fire during an earlier attempt to evacuate people by car.

Zelensky said hundreds of people had been removed from the plant Saturday and that preparations for another stage of evacuation comprising the wounded and medics were under way.

Zelenskyy vows to rescue fighters trapped in Azovstal

Zelenskyy has pledged to continue the “extremely difficult but essential” efforts to evacuate all those remaining in Azovstal.

“I want to thank the teams of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations for helping us carry out the first phase,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address.

“We managed to save more than 300 people, women and children … we took all civilians out of the Azovstal plant and are now preparing for the second stage of the evacuation mission to evacuate those who are wounded and medics.

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