Russia launched an assault with tanks and infantry on Tuesday for the first time on the steelworks of Azovstal, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic port of Mariupol, when the UN announced that it had succeeded in evacuating civilians from the steelworks.
“A powerful assault on the territory of Azovstal is currently underway, with the support of armored vehicles, tanks, with attempts to land troops, with the help of boats and a large number of elements of infantry,” Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, said in a video message on Telegram.
Shortly before, the Russian Ministry of Defense had announced that planes and artillery of the Russian army and the pro-Russian “People’s Republic” of Donetsk were beginning to “destroy” Ukrainian “firing positions”.
He accused the Ukrainian Azov regiment, which defends the plant, of having taken advantage of the decreed ceasefire to evacuate civilians to get out of the basements of the steelworks and position themselves “on the territory and in the buildings From the factory”.
Until now the Russian forces pounded by plane and from the sea this steelworks, whose immense underground galleries dating from the Second World War sheltered combatants and civilians deprived of water, food and medicine, without trying to enter.
On April 21, Vladimir Putin said he had ordered his troops not to launch an assault, but to block the area “so that not a fly would pass”.
– “We had lost hope” –
Two civilian women were killed and a dozen civilians injured in the shelling that preceded the assault, Palamar said in his video message, indicating that other civilians were still at the scene.
In the morning, the Ukrainian presidency announced that it would continue its efforts, with the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to evacuate the civilians who remained in Azovstal, numbering 200 according to the mayor of Mariupol, Vadim Boïtchenko.
This weekend, for the first time in two months of siege and bombing, a hundred civilians holed up in the cellars of the huge Azovstal steelworks were able to be evacuated.
At least some of them arrived on Tuesday in the city of Zaporizhia, a Ukrainian-controlled city 230 km northwest of Mariupol.
“I am happy and relieved to confirm that 101 civilians have been successfully evacuated from the Azovstal Metallurgical Plant in Mariupol,” UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Osnat Lubrani said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We are so grateful to everyone who helped us. There was a time when we lost hope, we thought everyone had forgotten about us,” said one of the evacuees, Anna Zaitseva, upon arrival. with a six-month-old baby in her arms.
Referring to an “extremely delicate and complex operation”, the head of the ICRC delegation in Ukraine, Pascal Hundt, nevertheless deplored that only some of the civilians trapped in Azovstal had been able to be evacuated.
– “Hour of Glory”
The first Western leader to address the Ukrainian parliament since the start of the conflict on February 24, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised Tuesday additional military aid of 300 million pounds (355 million euros) for kyiv.
“This is Ukraine’s finest hour, which will be remembered and told for generations,” Boris Johnson said, referring to Winston Churchill’s famous speech on June 18, 1940.
“We will continue to help Ukraine … with weapons, funding and humanitarian aid, until we reach our long-term goal, which must be to strengthen Ukraine in such a way that no one ever dares attack you”, assured the British leader, in this speech delivered by videoconference from London.
This new aid includes “radar to locate the artillery bombarding your cities, heavy transport drones to supply your forces, and thousands of night vision devices”, he said.
So far, the UK has supplied Ukraine with 5,000 anti-tank missiles, five anti-aircraft missile systems with over 100 missiles and 4.5 tonnes of explosives.
The announcement came as Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the West to stop supplying arms to Ukraine, in a phone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
– “Toenails torn out” –
In eastern Ukraine, the Russians continue their offensive.
Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, and nearby towns continue to be bombed, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.
In Donbass, at least nine people were killed Tuesday in shelling in the Donetsk region, according to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
And in the south of the country, the big city of Odessa is again the target of Russian missiles.
Ukrainians fear that this major port is among Moscow’s objectives, especially since a Russian general claimed that the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine was aimed at establishing a corridor from Russia to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, which would pass through Odessa.
East of Odessa, the center of Mykolaiv was struck on Monday evening, according to the morning report of the presidency. An investigation into possible “torture and murder” during the Russian occupation of a locality in this region has been launched, the services of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine also indicated on Telegram on Tuesday.
“According to the investigation, the bodies of two residents with traces of gunshot wounds were found in a mass grave in the village of Novofontanka” and “one of the men had his legs tied”, they specify.
In Kalynivka, in the kyiv region, a grave containing two civilians, with “nails pulled out” and “hands tied” was also found, according to Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency.
“Russia has chosen the path of terror against the civilian population and must be recognized as a sponsor of terrorism,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
– Referendums in sight –
The Europeans are working on their side to toughen their economic sanctions against Moscow.
The European Commission has finalized its proposal for a sixth sanctions package against Moscow to cut funding for its war effort against Ukraine.
It provides for a gradual cessation of European purchases of Russian oil over a period of 6 to 8 months, with an exemption for Hungary and Slovakia, two landlocked countries totally dependent on deliveries by the Druzhba pipeline, which will be able to continue their purchases at the Russia until 2023, said a European official.
The approach of May 9, the date when Russia celebrates victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, is fueling speculation about how Moscow could announce gains in Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian military intelligence, “Russia is examining the possibility of attaching the invaded territories of southern Ukraine to occupied Crimea and integrating them into the Russian economic space”.
“The Russian occupation regime is trying to convince the local population that (Russia) has definitively established its control over the occupied territories.”
In Washington, the American ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Michael Carpenter, reported “very credible” reports that Russia intends to organize “around mid-May” referendums to “attempt to annex” the pro-Russian separatist “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk, in Donbass (eastern Ukraine).
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