Ukrainian defenders defy surrender-or-die demands in Mariupol

Ukrainian fighters hiding at a massive steel plant in the last known pocket of resistance inside the shattered city of Mariupol on Sunday ignored a surrender or die ultimatum from Russia and held up against capturing the strategically important port.

The fall of Mariupol, the site of a ruthless 7-week-old siege that turned much of the city into smoking ruins, would be Moscow’s biggest victory of the war and forces troops to participate in a potentially climactic battle for control. will have to be freed. of the industrial east of Ukraine.

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Capturing the southern city would allow Russia to fully secure a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a major port and its prized industrial wealth. Had done it.

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As its missiles and rockets fell into other parts of the country, Russia estimated that 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers and about 400 foreign mercenaries had been dug into the vast Azovstal steel mill, which covers an area of more than 11 square kilometers (4 sq mi). is at a distance and the tunnel is attached to it

The chief of the city’s patrol police, Mikhail Vershinin, told Mariupol television on Sunday that several Mariupol citizens, including children, were also taking shelter at the Azovstal plant. They said they were hiding from Russian shelling and from any captured Russian troops.

Moscow had given the defenders a deadline of noon to surrender and “keep their lives”, but the Ukrainians rejected it, as they have done with previous ultimatums.

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“We will fight desperately for victory in this war,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denis Shmyal said on ABC’s “This Week.” He said Ukraine was ready to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we do not intend to surrender.”

As for the encirclement of Mariupol, there was no hope of a military rescue by the Ukrainian army on Sunday any time soon. Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the remaining Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in Mariupol were basically surrounded. They said they “continue their struggle,” but the city effectively no longer exists due to the massive destruction.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky sent Easter greetings via Twitter, saying: “The resurrection of the Lord is a testament to the victory of life over death, of good over evil.”

If Mariupol falls, Russian forces are expected to engage in an all-out attack in the coming days for control of the Donbass, the eastern industrial zone, which the Kremlin captured after failing in its bid to take Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. intent on doing.

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According to Ukrainian estimates, at least 21,000 people have been killed in Mariupol’s continuous bombing and street fighting. A maternity hospital was hit by a deadly Russian air raid in the early weeks of the war, and nearly 300 people were killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians were taking refuge.

An estimated 100,000 were left stranded in a siege without food, water, heat or electricity, out of a former population of 450,000 in the city, which has made Mariupol the scene of some of the war’s worst victims.

Announcing the latest ultimatum, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said, “Those who continue to resist will be destroyed.”

Drone footage carried by Russian news agency RIA-Novosti shows high plumes of smoke rising above a steel complex, which is located on the Azov Sea, on the outskirts of the bombed-out city.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hannah Malayar described Mariupol as “the shield protecting Ukraine” as Russian troops prepare for battle mostly in the Russian-speaking Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory. .

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Meanwhile, Russian forces conducted air strikes near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent attempt to undermine Ukraine’s military capability ahead of a possible attack.

After the humiliating sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last week in what Ukrainians claimed was a missile attack, the Kremlin vowed to intensify attacks on the capital.

Russia said on Sunday it had attacked an ammunition plant near Kyiv with precision-guided missiles overnight, the third such strike in as many days.

An overnight explosion was also reported in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, where rockets killed at least 57 people earlier this month.

Ukrainian defenders defy surrender-or-die demands in Mariupol

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At least five people were killed in Russian shelling on Sunday in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Regional officials gave this information. The barrage collided with apartment buildings and other debris, including broken glass and parts of at least one rocket, scattered across the streets.

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov, in an impassioned address marking Orthodox Palm Sunday, attacked Russian forces for not abandoning a bombing campaign on such a holy day.

And Zelensky in his nightly address to the nation called the Kharkiv bombing “nothing but deliberate terror.”