Russian forces pressured a stubborn pocket of resistance in Mariupol amid renewed hopes Wednesday for an evacuation of thousands of civilians from the shattered port city that is a key battleground…
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces pressured a stubborn pocket of resistance in Mariupol amid renewed hopes Wednesday for an evacuation of thousands of civilians from the shattered port city that is a key battleground in Moscow’s new onslaught to take control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
Elsewhere, Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday its forces kept up intense attacks on Ukrainian targets, hitting 1,053 with artillery and 73 with airstrikes. Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov also said there had been missile strikes on concentrations of Ukrainian troops and vehicles in the Kherson Region in southern Ukraine. Those claims could not be independently verified.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko urged locals to leave the city, though previous such agreements have fallen apart, with Russians preventing buses meant to pick up evacuees from entering the city or shelling escape routes. Many previous evacuation efforts relied on civilians using private cars after efforts to bring buses from Ukraine-held territory into the city failed. But with fuel supplies and the number of such vehicles dwindling in the city, that is becoming increasingly difficult.
Mariupol’s fall would also deprive Ukraine of a vital port, complete a land bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014 and would also free up Russian troops to move elsewhere in the Donbas.The deputy commander of the Azov regiment, who was among the troops remaining in Mariupol, said the Russian military dropped heavy bombs on the steel plant and hit an “improvised” hospital.
“They have driven almost everyone and everything that is capable of fighting us against Ukraine,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation.
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