A Ukrainian official said more civilians have been rescued from the tunnels under a besieged steel plant in Mariupol, even as fighters holed up at the sprawling complex made their last stand to prevent Moscow's complete takeover of the strategic port city.
“We conducted another stage of a complex operation to evacuate people from Mariupol and Azovstal. I can say that we managed to take out almost 500 civilians,” the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said Friday on the Telegram messaging app.
Ahead of Victory Day — which marks the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany — municipal workers and volunteers cleaned up what remains of Mariupol, a city that is now under Russia’s control apart from the steel plant. Bulldozers scooped up debris and and people swept streets — with a backdrop of buildings hollowed out by shelling. Workers repaired a model of warship, and Russian flags were hoisted on utility poles.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces are making only “plodding” progress in the Donbas, while the institute said their operations there were “ineffectual” and had not secured any significant territorial gains in the preceding 24 hours. The Ukrainians say Russian troops have stormed the steelworks and are also striking it from the air, but the wife of one commander at the plant said they had vowed to “stand till the end.”
The Russians have pulverized much of Mariupol, which had a prewar population of over 400,000, and a two-month siege that has trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians. Civilians sheltering inside the plant have perhaps suffered even more — hunkering underground without seeing daylight in months.
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