KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the rubble of the port of Mariupol resisted a Russian ultimatum on Sunday asking them to lay down their arms, saying Moscow had virtual control of the place, which would be its biggest prize of war in almost two months of conflict.
“The city still hasn’t fallen,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told American television channel ABC, adding that the Ukrainian soldiers still there continued to fight and still controlled parts of the city.
Russia claimed control of the urban parts of the city on Saturday, with some Ukrainian fighters still present in the Azovstal steelworks. The Russian Ministry of Defense asked them to lay down their arms by 06:00 am Moscow time (03:00 GMT) if they wanted to save their lives.
“In view of the catastrophic situation in the Azovstal steel plant, as well as for purely humanitarian reasons, the Russian Armed Forces call on the fighters of the nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries to end hostilities and lay down their arms,” he wrote. the minister in a press release.
“All those who lay down their arms are guaranteed that their lives will be spared.”
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky accused Russia on Saturday of “deliberately trying to destroy everyone” Mariupol, adding that the deaths of its soldiers risked ending peace efforts.
A CRUEL AND SENSELESS WAR, SAYS THE POPE
In his Easter blessing “Urbi et Orbi”, Pope Francis lamented an “Easter of war”, pleaded for an end to the bloodshed and implicitly criticized Russia.
“Peace come to war-torn Ukraine, so hard-tested by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it has been dragged,” he said.
The fall of Mariupol, besieged since the first days of the war launched on February 24, would allow Russia to consolidate a land route linking the Crime Peninsula which it annexed in 2014 and the regions in the hands of pro-Russian separatists in Donbass , in eastern Ukraine.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, several other sporadic Russian strikes were reported on Sunday.
Artillery fire around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, left five dead and 13 injured in the city center, state broadcaster Suspilne reported, citing local health authorities.
A bombardment also left two dead in the eastern town of Zolote, the local governor said, information that Reuters was not immediately able to verify.
A missile strike in the early hours of Sunday also damaged infrastructure in the town of Brovary, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the mayor of Brovary said in an online message. According to the spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, it was an ammunition factory that was destroyed.
(French version Camille Raynaud and Gilles Guillaume)
by Alessandra Prentice and Natalia Zinets