Mariupol Situation Difficult But City Still Holding Out: Ukraine

Officials seek urgent evacuation corridor for civilians as Russia steps up bombing

The situation in Ukraine’s south-eastern port city of Mariupol is “extremely difficult” but the city has not been taken under full control by Russian forces, a spokesman for Ukraine’s defence ministry said yesterday.

Speaking at a media briefing, spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk also said that bombing runs by Russian military aircraft had increased of late by more than 50 per cent and that Ukraine’s infrastructure had come in for increased targeting.

He echoed remarks made by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal a day earlier, when he said troops in the pulverised city were still fighting despite a Russian demand to surrender by dawn on Sunday.

In a related development, Ukraine yesterday called for Russia to facilitate a humanitarian corridor for evacuees from Mariupol and one from a steel plant that is the city’s last significant area of Ukrainian resistance.

“We demand an urgent humanitarian corridor from the territory of the Azovstal plant for women, children and other civilians,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a post on the Telegram messaging service.