Russia Resumes Strikes On Mariupol Mill As Fleeing Civilians Describe 'Hell'

Russia began storming the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol yesterday with civilians still trapped inside - as others who had been evacuated from the bombed-out plant reached safer territory and spoke of the "hell” of constant shelling.

- Thomas Kingsley

The site had become last pocket of resistance in the Ukrainian port city, whose capture would allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula and free up troops for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas.

It came as Russian rockets pounded other parts of eastern and southern Ukraine and targeted dumps of advanced western military hardware, while Boris Johnson invoked Winston Churchill in a speech promising that Ukraine's western-backed government would defeat Russia's invasion and secure its freedom.