On the 53rd day of the Russian invasion, all eyes are on the last pocket of resistance in the beleaguered city of Mariupol, which has ignored the call to surrender from Moscow. The latter has intensified its strikes on Ukraine since its naval flagship sank in the Black Sea.
Will the city of Mariupol fall? This strategic port in southeastern Ukraine has been the target of uninterrupted bombardments since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the situation there is “inhuman”, in the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Putin’s army called on the last defenders of the city to lay down their arms this Sunday at 12 p.m. (French time), they who are entrenched in the Azovstal metallurgical complex. The latter seemed to ignore Russia’s ultimatum.
In the early morning of Sunday, the Ukrainian general staff indicated that airstrikes had been carried out on the city by the Russians, in particular from the Donetsk region. He also mentioned “assault operations near the port”, without further details. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced at the same time the suspension of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians from eastern Ukraine, for lack of an agreement with the Russian army on a cessation of firing. .
Pocket of Resistance
As early as Saturday evening, Zelensky called on Westerners to provide “immediately” the heavy weapons he has been calling for for several weeks and threatened to stop peace negotiations with Moscow if the last Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol were “eliminated”. According to him, there is only “two options” : either the Westerners deliver heavy weapons immediately to help him lift the siege of Mariupol, or they help him to obtain a cessation of the fighting through negotiation. For the time being, the pocket of resistance still holds sectors of the city and these soldiers “will fight to the end”, declared the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Chmygal, in an interview broadcast this Sunday by the American channel ABC. “No, the city did not fall. Our military forces, our soldiers are still there,”he assures.
Taking the port of Mariupol would allow the Russians to consolidate their coastal territorial gains along the Sea of Azov by linking the Donbass region, partly controlled by their supporters, to Crimea which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Intensified strikes against Kyiv
In the northeast, in Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, at least 5 people were killed on Sunday and 13 others injured in a series of strikes that caused fires, according to local emergency services.
Russian forces also said they had bombed a new arms factory near Kyiv for the third day in a row, following through on their threat to step up strikes against the Ukrainian capital after their flagship fleet was destroyed in the Black Sea on Thursday. , the cruiser Moskva.
The Ukrainians claim to have caused its sinking thanks to their Neptune anti-ship missiles. The Pentagon agreed, stating that the Russian ship had been hit by two Ukrainian missiles. A version that the Russian authorities have not officially endorsed, simply evoking a fire that caused the explosion of ammunition on board the building. Moscow nevertheless warned that it would intensify its strikes against the Ukrainian capital. A Russian strike thus hit a complex in the Kyiv region producing Neptune missiles on Friday.