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Russian forces are attacking a steel plant that is the last stronghold of Ukrainian forces in the strategic port city of Mariupol, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office said.
Oleksiy Arestovich said on Saturday that the Russian forces have resumed air strikes on Azovstal and are trying to storm it. “The enemy is trying to completely suppress resistance of the defenders of Mariupol in the area of Azovstal,” he said.
Mr Arestovich’s statement came two days after Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin the whole of Mariupol, with the exception of Azovstal, had been “liberated” by the Russians.
Mr Putin ordered the Russian military not to storm the plant and instead to block it off in an apparent attempt to stifle the remaining pocket of resistance there.
Ukrainian officials have estimated that about 2,000 of their troops are inside the plant along with about 1,000 civilians sheltering in the facility’s underground tunnels. Mr Arestovich said the Ukrainian fighters are still holding on despite the resumed attacks and are trying to counter them.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine will attempt again to evacuate woman, children and elderly people from in and around Mariupol around noon local time. The planned movement of vulnerable civilians out of the heavily-bombed city has been scrapped several times because of the inability to guarantee safe passage. “Corridors have been broken so many times. But you and I should try as many times as necessary until it works,” Vereshchuk said Friday on Telegram.
Some 2,000 Ukrainians troops remain holed up in city’s Azovstal steel works, which Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered to be sealed off. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded after a Russian general said Moscow aims to seize control of eastern and southern Ukraine, including critical Black Sea ports. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his top priority was to avoid a war with nuclear-armed Russia.
The United Nations secretary-general will have meetings with both President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin next week as the world body seeks urgent steps toward peace.
Russia’s central bank said the economy faces a deep and prolonged contraction, higher inflation and reduced living standards as sanctions take effect.
Fighting Continues in Mariupol
Russian forces resumed airstrikes in their latest attempt to dislodge Ukrainian fighters holed up at Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, Ukrainian presidential spokesman Oleksiy Arestovych said in video statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia had captured the city, and ordered the steelworks sealed off. Even so, the UK Defense Ministry says heavy fighting continues. Some 2,000 Ukrainians troops and many civilians in the Azovstal complex.
Civilian evacuations from the mostly destroyed city were scheduled to resume Saturday.
“Despite their stated conquest of Mariupol, heavy fighting continues to take place, frustrating Russian attempts to capture the city, thus further slowing their desired progress in the Donbas,” the UK defense ministry said in an intelligence update.
Russian troops “have made no major gains” in the east over the past day in the face of Ukrainian counter-attacks and effective air and sea defence, the UK said.
Ukraine is conducting a counteroffensive north of Kharkiv and took control of three settlements, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said Saturday on Telegram. Two civilians were killed and 19 injured by shelling in the Kharkiv region.
The co-heads of Russia’s biggest digital lender quit to start a fintech focused on emerging markets in Southeast Asia days after the bank’s founder, sanctioned billionaire Oleg Tinkov, slammed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as an “insane war.”
The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, told Russian President Putin what an EU official called some brutal truths about the war in Ukraine during a call Friday. Michel, who chairs EU summits, believes Putin’s entourage doesn’t brief him fully about events, according to the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential talks.
Michel told Putin that the Russian leader had been wrong about his expectations that the war would last 48 hours, divide EU members and fail to trigger heavy economic sanctions. According to the Kremlin’s readout, Putin reiterated Moscow’s public line, criticizing what it called “irresponsible statements of EU officials on the need to resolve the situation in Ukraine militarily” and the bloc’s “ignoring of numerous war crimes by Ukrainian forces.”
Warning
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russia’s invasion of his country was just the beginning and that Moscow has designs on capturing other countries, after a Russian general said it wants full control over southern Ukraine.
“All the nations that, like us, believe in the victory of life over death must fight with us. They must help us, because we are the first in line. And who will come next?” Zelenskiy said in a video address late on Friday.
Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, was quoted by Russian state news agencies as saying full control over southern Ukraine would give it access to Transnistria, a breakaway Russian-occupied part of Moldova in the west.
That would cut off Ukraine’s entire coastline and mean Russian forces pushing hundreds of miles further west, past the major Ukrainian coastal cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa.
The statement was one of the most detailed about Moscow’s ambitions in Ukraine and suggests Russia does not plan to wind down its offensive there anytime soon.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said Minnekayev’s comments showed Russia was no longer hiding its intentions.
Moscow, it said on Twitter, had now “acknowledged that the goal of the ‘second phase’ of the war is not victory over the mythical Nazis, but simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine. Imperialism as it is.”
But despite Russia’s claims to have seized Mariupol, its forces made no major gains in the last 24 hours, British military intelligence said on Saturday.
Ukrainian counterattacks continue to hinder Moscow’s efforts, and heavy fighting is frustrating Russian attempts to capture the key port city, impeding their progress in the Donbas, the Ministry of Defence tweetedin a regular bulletin.
Allies
Russia says it is conducting a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine and liberate its population from dangerous nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies call Russia’s February 24th invasion an unjustified war of aggression.
Moldova’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Moscow’s ambassador on Friday to express “deep concern” about the general’s comments. Moldova was neutral, it said. Moldova last month applied to join the European Union, charting a pro-Western course hastened by Russia’s invasion.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on whether Russia had expanded its goals or on how Moscow saw the political future of southern Ukraine.
As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington, Zelenskiy said allies were finally delivering the weapons Kyiv had asked for.
President Joe Biden said on Thursday he had authorized a further $800 million in military aid for Ukraine, including heavy artillery, ammunition and drones. Canada said on Friday it had provided more heavy artillery to Ukraine.
A senior EU official said the next couple of weeks would likely be decisive. “We are likely to see a very significant increase in the intensity of Russian military attacks in the east (and on) the coast,” he told reporters.
War Crimes
Ukraine’s military said Russia is continuing its offensive operations in the east, trying to establish full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and secure a land connection to Crimea.
Russian forces are also partially blockading the city of Kharkiv, according to a Saturday morning update from Ukraine’s general staff.
In Mykolaiv, 87 civilians have died in the invasion, including one child, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said late Friday on his Facebook page. Nearly 400 people have been wounded. Reuters could not independently verify reports from either side.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s Chechnya region who has often described himself as Putin’s “foot soldier”, wrote on his official Telegram account late on Friday that Chechnya was deploying hundreds of additional volunteers to fight for Russia in Ukraine.
In Geneva, the United Nations human rights office said there was growing evidence of Russian war crimes, including indiscriminate shelling and summary executions. It said Ukraine also appeared to have used weapons with indiscriminate effects.
Russia denies targeting civilians and says, without evidence, that signs of atrocities committed by its soldiers were faked. Ukraine has previously said it will punish any soldiers found to have committed war crimes.
Russia said it had “securely blockaded” thousands of Ukrainian troops holed up in a huge steel works in Mariupol, the main port of the Donbas, a day after President Vladimir Putin said the army would not bother rooting them out.
Putin declared victory in the city after a nearly two-month siege. In a Russian-held section of Mariupol, dazed-looking residents ventured out this week to a background of charred apartment blocks and wrecked cars.
Volunteers in white hazmat suits and masks roved the ruins, collecting bodies from apartments and loading them on to a truck marked with the letter “Z”, symbol of Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine estimates tens of thousands of civilians have died in Russia’s siege of the city and says 100,000 civilians are still there and need full evacuation.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk on Friday said “there is a possibility” a humanitarian corridor out of Mariupol could be opened up on Saturday.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will visit Moscow on Tuesday to meet Putin and discuss urgently bringing peace to Ukraine, a spokesperson said, adding that Guterres will then head to Kyiv for talks with Zelenskiy.
— Reuters with additional reporting by Bloomberg