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Why Russia wants to close the Mariupol thép steel plant


Members of the pro-Russian military sit atop an armored vehicle on their way to the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 17.
Service members of the pro-Russian military sit atop an armored vehicle en route to the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 17. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Mr. Putin has claimed that Russian forces have “liberated” Mariupol, but the situation in the besieged port city remains puzzling as Ukrainian officials deny that the city has fallen into Russian hands.

As Mariupol Dam continuesThe Azovstal steel plant became one of the last major bases of Ukrainian forces.

This vast industrial complex shelters hundreds of soldiers and civilians.

Evacuation: After several failed attempts to establish safe corridors, four evacuation buses tried to leave Mariupol on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said on Thursday.

“They spent the night in Berdiansk and are now heading to Vasylivka,” Vereshchuk said in a statement on Telegram.

However, officials say that tens of thousands of civilians still stuck in Mariupol.

The co-commander of one of the Ukrainian units besieged in the port said the city was still under heavy shelling.

Maksym Zhorin, co-commander of Ukraine’s Azov regiment, said on television that Russian forces “have not stopped shelling Mariupol’s areas” amid talks over the so-called “green corridor” ” to evacuate the city, limiting the number of people possible. be evacuated.

Call for arms for Ukraine: Much of the southern city was destroyed or badly damaged. Drone photos and footage show barely a single street left after the war, while relentless bombing has made it uninhabitable.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that the country’s forces did not have enough “serious and heavy” weapons to defeat the Russian army in Mariupol.

He outlined two potential ways to end the deadlock in the city: “First, it involved heavy weapons and serious […] Currently we do not have enough of these weapons to liberate Mariupol. The second path is diplomacy. So far Russia has not agreed to this.”

He added:

“We don’t know when we will be able to block Mariupol. And I say this openly, that all the boys in Mariupol want our victory, they want a free city, none of them will surrender to the enemy. This is how they feel inside, this is what they are,” he added, speaking alongside European Council President Charles Michel in Kyiv.

Zelensky also said that the fate of “several thousand” Ukrainian civilians who fled the besieged city of Mariupol through evacuation corridors to Russian-occupied territories is currently unknown.

Two top Ukrainian officials say they are ready to go to Mariupol to Negotiate evacuation soldiers and civilians, according to a captain in Ukraine’s Azov Regiment.



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