One of the advisers of the Ukrainian presidency offered Russia a “special session of negotiations” in the besieged port city.
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Ukraine called Wednesday, April 20, for negotiations with Russia on the fate of the besieged city of Mariupol. Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency and one of the negotiators with Russia, called for a “special negotiating session” in the strategic port city. He wants “save our guys, (the battalion) Azov, soldiers, civilians, children, the living and the wounded. Everyone”he wrote on his Twitter account.
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The Ukrainian Defense Ministry pointed out that the Russian army “focused most of its efforts on taking Mariupol and continued its assault attempts near the Azovstal steel plant”the last island of resistance of this port located on the Sea of Azov, at the southern end of the Donbass.
Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov battalion, one of the two Ukrainian formations still resisting in Mariupol, stressed in a message on Telegram on Wednesday that the situation was “critique” in the factory shelled by the Russian air force with “super powerful bombs”.
The humanitarian corridor, which had in principle been negotiated to allow the evacuation of civilians from the city on Wednesday, “did not work”said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. She accused the Russians of violating the ceasefire and blocking the buses.