A Ukrainian commander fighting in the last bastion of Mariupol said that the troops “live perhaps our last days, if not hours”, and called on the international community to “extract” them, in a message posted Wednesday on Facebook.
“The enemy exceeds us ten to one,” said Sergiy Volyna of the 36th Marine Brigade, sheltered in a besieged factory in Azovstal.
“We call and implore all world leaders to help us. We ask them to use the extraction procedure and take us to the territory of a third country,” he added.
It was not possible to verify the information provided by both sides, given the scale of the fighting and the lack of communications in Mariupol.
It is believed that Russian forces have gradually managed to force their way into the city and some Ukrainian soldiers said on Tuesday that a hospital near the Azovstal plant was attacked.
Volyna assured that the Russians had the “advantage of air, artillery, ground forces, equipment and tanks.”
“We are defending only one object, the Azovstal plant, where in addition to military personnel, civilians have fallen as victims of this war,” he said.
In addition to the soldiers and militiamen who resist, there are at least 1,000 civilians sheltered in the underground of the industrial complex, said the municipal authority of Mariupol, which fears more than 20,000 civilians killed in the city.
Russia called on Ukrainian forces in Mariupol on Tuesday to “immediately” lay down their weapons, in a new ultimatum that they beat at 14 o'clock today.
His defense ministry said that Ukrainian forces entrenched in Azovstal are facing a “catastrophic situation”.
Russia did not comment on developments in the city, but pro-Russian separatists from the Donetsk region, where Mariupol is located, claimed that five Ukrainian soldiers surrendered and 140 civilians were evacuated.
Moscow announced this week a “new phase” in this war that, since its start on February 24, has led to the exile outside the country of more than five million people, the most important and accelerated exodus from Europe since World War II, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
From the very beginning, Mariupol, located to the south, on the Sea of Azov, has been a key player in Moscow's plans to establish a corridor between the pro-Russian territories of the Donbas (east) and the Crimean peninsula.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced a pact with Russia to evacuate “women, children and the elderly” from there through a corridor to Zaporiyia, a 200 km northwest journey.
“Do not be afraid to go to Zaporiyia, where you will receive all the necessary help: food, medicine, basic necessities... But the essential thing will be this: they will be safe,” said the mayor of Mariupol, Vadim Boichenko.
The seizure of Mariupol would be a key step forward for Russia after it had withdrawn its troops from northern Ukraine and around Kiev to focus on the Donbas, a mining basin in the east disputed since 2014 by the Kiev government and pro-Russian rebels.
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