Kyiv confirmed that the strategic port city of Mariupol, which Moscow says it “liberated”, is still resisting Russian forces, noting that thousands of Ukrainian fighters continue to fight fiercely to defend the massive Azovstal metallurgical complex.
“There is not a single building that has not been damaged in Mariupol. The city is already burnt out,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech to the Portuguese parliament on Thursday.
“For more than a month, Russian forces besieged Mariupol (…) hundreds of thousands of civilians were (stuck) there without food, without water, without medicine, under constant bombardment,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russian forces had “liberated” Mariupol and ordered the remaining Ukrainian fighters to besiege the Azovstal industrial site where they were holed up, rather than storm it.
Volodymyr Zelensky did not declare his defeat, asserting that the battle was still going on.
Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol refuse to surrender, while efforts to evacuate civilians continue.
An AFP journalist reported the arrival of three buses carrying civilians from Mariupol to the large city of Zaporizhia in southeastern Ukraine on Thursday.
Ukrainian officials stress that they want to evacuate more civilians from Mariupol, but accuse Russian forces of targeting a road used by people fleeing the fighting.
“We apologize to the residents of Mariupol, who waited for the evacuation today without result,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on the Telegram app.
She added that “the bombing operations began near the assembly point, which led to the closure of the (humanitarian) corridor.”
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