Time.news – For the first time, Russia has launched an assault with tanks and infantry on the Azovstal steelworks, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic port of Mariupol. “A powerful assault on Azovstal territory is currently underway, with the support of armored vehicles, tanks, landing attempts by troops and a large number of infantry elements“, said Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, in a video message on Telegram.
Shortly before, the Russian Defense Ministry had announced that the aircraft and artillery of the Russian army and the self-proclaimed pro-Russian republic of Donetsk were beginning to “destroy” Ukrainian “firing positions”.
Moscow accused the Ukrainian Azov regiment, entrenched in the factory, of taking advantage of the ceasefire decreed to evacuate civilians to get out of the basement of the steel mills and position themselves “on the territory and in the factory buildings”.
In recent days, Russian forces have hammered the steel mill from the air and sea, in whose immense underground tunnels, dating back to the Second World War, both fighters and civilians had taken refuge, with food, water and medicine reserves now running out. Last April 21st Vladimir Putin had in fact ordered his troops not to launch an assault from the ground but to block the area “so that a fly does not pass”.
Two women were killed and a dozen civilians were injured in the bombing that preceded the assault, Palamar said, according to whom some civilians remain in the facility. This weekend, for the first time in two months of siege and bombing, around 100 civilians holed up in the steel mill were evacuated. Some of them arrived this morning in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, 230 kilometers northwest of Mariupol.
Meanwhile, in eastern Ukraine, the Russians continue their offensive. According to the Ukrainian general staff, Kharkiv, the second largest city in the country, and the nearby towns continue to be bombed. In the Donbass, the fighting continues with increasing intensity. According to the governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, a bombing raid on Adviivka killed 10 workers as soon as they left a factory.
Further west, the bombing of the center of Mykolaiv on Monday evening raises concerns that the recent missile attacks on Odessa are not solely aimed at hampering Western arms deliveries to the Kiev army.
Ukrainians fear this important port is among Moscow’s targets, after Russian general Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of the Central Russia Military District, said two weeks ago that the Kremlin offensive was aimed at establishing a corridor from Russia to the Moldovan separatist region of Transniestria. A scenario that would deprive Ukraine of its entire coastline and it would bring the war even closer to the borders of the European Union.