The governor of the Donetsk region said that more than 20 thousand people have died in the Russian siege against Mariupol

The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Tuesday that more than 20,000 people have died in Mariupol, a city in southern Ukraine where a key battle for the aspirations of the Russian invasion is being fought.

According to the governor to CNN, “between 20,000 and 22,000” civilians have died in the city, besieged by invading troops and with a severe shortage of basic supplies.

The figure significantly increases that projected by Mayor Vadym Boychenko, who had previously estimated the deaths at around 10,000, adding that approximately 120,000 inhabitants - out of almost 450,000 that existed before the Russian military campaign - are still trying to survive the Vladimir Putin offensive.

Surrounded by Russian troops for weeks and at the center of some of the most fierce fighting of the war, Mariupol would be the first major city to fall since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. The battle for the industrial heart of Dombas will probably define the course of the war.

According to the US-based Institute for War Studies (ISW), the Russians have divided the position of Ukrainian troops in the city in two: one group is stocked at the Azovstal steel mill in the east, and another in the port in the southwest.

It is clear to ISW experts that Ukrainian defenders will have no respite. He believes that the Russians “will continue efforts to complete the capture of the remaining pockets of Ukrainian resistance, possibly even through the use of chemical weapons.”

The blockade is such that in an unusual review the 36th Marine Brigade said on Monday that the last battle in the devastated city is probably approaching, since “we run out of ammunition” and then only “hand-to-hand combat” remains. The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, wrote on Facebook that “the defense of Mariupol continues” and that “the connection with the units of the defense forces that heroically hold the city is stable and maintained.” “We are doing everything possible and impossible to win and save the lives of the military and civilians,” he said.

Faced with Russian versions of defections, Ukraine responds that the defense remains firm. This Tuesday the same 36th Marine Brigade assured that the defenders of Mariupol “did not abandon their positions and that they are fighting for every inch of the city” as best they can. Of course, they reiterated that the city is “without supply of ammunition or food,” according to Ukrainian television channel 1+1.

This Wednesday, Russia again assured that Ukrainian troops surrendered. The spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, General Igor Konashenkov, said that 1,026 troops of the 36th Navy Brigade surrendered at a metallurgical plant in the city. Among them were 162 officers and 47 women, and the 151 who were injured received medical attention, he said.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych did not comment on the alleged surrender, but in a Twitter post he noted that elements of the 36th Navy Brigade had managed to connect with other Ukrainian forces in the city after a “risky maneuver.”

Ukraine says tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped inside Mariupol without access to food or water, and accuses Russia of blocking aid convoys.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadirov, an ardent supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, urged Ukrainians who remain entrenched in Azovstal to surrender. “Inside Azovstal right now there are about 200 wounded who cannot receive any medical assistance,” Kadirov said in a Telegram message. “It would be better for them and for everyone else to end this futile resistance and return home to their families.”

If the Russians take the industrial district of Azovstal, where the soldiers have taken refuge, they would have full control of Mariupol, Ukraine's main port on the Azov Sea, allowing Russia to reinforce a land corridor between the separatist-controlled eastern areas and the Crimea region it seized and annexed in 2014.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar has stated that there is a high risk that Russia will use chemical weapons, in line with previous warnings from Zelensky, who on Wednesday told the Estonian Parliament via videoconference that Russia was using white phosphorus bombs to terrorize civilians.

(With information from Reuters, AFP and EFE)

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