Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelesnki said today that Russia is “deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is” in Mariupol and he asked the West for more weapons to preserve any chance of saving the city on the Sea of Azov.
“The situation in Mariupol is as serious as it can be. Simply inhumane,” Zelensky said in a video. The president pointed out that there were only “two options”: the supply from Western countries of “all the necessary weapons” to break the long siege of Mariupol or “the path of negotiation” in which “the role of the allies must be equally decisive.
The Russian Defense Ministry today asked the last Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the huge Mariupol metallurgical complex to lay down their weapons today at 6 in Moscow and leave the place before 13.
“All those who have abandoned their weapons will have the guarantee of saving their lives (…) It is their only chance,” the Ministry said on Telegram, assuring that this complex is the last focus of resistance in the city.
Hours later, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Russian forces had shelled the city, including the Azovstal steel plant, and “conducted assault operations near the port.”
The statement did not mention the Russian ultimatum, the AFP news agency reported. The Russian military already controls what remains of the devastated city after six weeks of shelling and siege as it prepares for an offensive in the eastern Ukraine region known as Donbass, which includes Mariupol.
The capture of the port city would allow Russia to link its forces present in southern Ukraine, which come from the annexed Crimean peninsula, with those deployed in Donbass, further east.
After having reoriented its campaign to the east and south, Russia returned to bombard the capital kyiv in recent days after the sinking of its flagship in the Dead Sea, the cruiser Moskva, which Ukraine claims to have hit with missiles.
Moscow denies this version and attributes the sinking to a fire caused by an explosion of ammunition on board. Today’s attack on a military factory near kyiv was preceded on Friday by the bombing of a factory also near the capital where the Neptune missiles were produced.
Yesterday it attacked an industrial complex for the production of tanks also on the outskirts, causing the death of one person and the hospitalization of several.
In the east, where the next major battle of this war is expected, Russian forces attacked an oil refinery four kilometers from Lisichansk and continued to bombard cities such as Kharkov, the country’s second largest city.
In the city of Kharkov, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said today that three people were killed and 34 wounded in yesterday’s attacks.
Source: Ambito
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