ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine –
Russian forces unleashed artillery fire on towns in eastern Ukraine, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, and began storming the bombed-out steel mill in Mariupol, from which dozens were evacuated after enduring weeks of shelling against the last pocket of resistance. from the city.
The governor of the eastern Donetsk region said Russian strikes left 21 dead on Tuesday, the highest known death toll since April 8, when a missile attack on the Kramatorsk train station killed at least 59 people.
Adding pressure on Moscow, the European Union leader on Wednesday called on the 27-nation bloc to ban imports of Russian oil in a new wave of sanctions.
“We will ensure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly manner, in a way that allows us and our partners to secure alternative supply routes and minimize the impact on global markets,” European Commission President Ursula von der said. Leyen, to the European Parliament. in Strasbourg, France. She also proposed that Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, and two other major banks disconnect from the SWIFT international banking payment system.
Thanks to the evacuation effort over the weekend, 101 people, including women, the elderly and 17 children, the youngest being 6 months old, emerged from bunkers under Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks to “see the light of day after two months,” said Osnat Lubrani. the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Wednesday that authorities plan to continue efforts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol and nearby areas if the security situation allows. Lubrani also expressed hope for more evacuations, but said none had been resolved.
One evacuee said that she went to sleep on the floor every night in fear of not waking up.
“You can’t imagine how scary it is when you sit in the bomb shelter, in a damp, wet basement, and it’s bouncing and shaking,” Elina Tsybulchenko, 54, said upon arriving in the Ukrainian-controlled town in Ukraine. Zaporizhzhia, about 230 kilometers northwest of Mariupol, in a convoy of buses and ambulances.
She said that if the shelter were hit by a bomb like the ones that left the huge craters she saw on the two occasions she ventured outside, “all of us would be finished.”
Evacuees, some of whom were crying, stepped off the buses into a tent that offered food, diapers and connections to the outside world. Some of the evacuees searched racks of donated clothing, including new underwear.
The news for those left behind was bleaker. Ukrainian commanders said Russian forces backed by tanks have begun storming the sprawling plant, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers spread over 11 square kilometers.
It was unclear how many Ukrainian fighters were still inside, but the Russians put the number at around 2,000 in recent weeks, with 500 reportedly wounded. A few hundred civilians also remained there, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
“We will do everything possible to repel the assault, but we are calling for urgent measures to evacuate the civilians who remain inside the plant and get them out safely,” said Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment. Telegram messaging application.
He added that throughout the night, the plant was attacked with naval artillery fire and air strikes. Two civilian women were killed and 10 civilians were wounded, he said.
In his late-night video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that by storming the steel plant, Russian forces violated agreements for safe evacuations. He said that the previous evacuations “are not a victory yet, but it is already a result. I think there is still a chance to save other people.”
Among those killed in fresh attacks in Donetsk on Tuesday were 10 people at a chemical plant in the city of Avdiivka, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
“The Russians knew exactly where to target: the workers had just finished their shift and were waiting for a bus at a stop to take them home,” he wrote in a Telegram post. “Another cynical crime of the Russians on our land.”
Two other civilians were killed and two wounded during overnight shelling in the neighboring Lugansk region, Gov. Serhiy Haidai said, adding that Russian attacks were intensifying.
Just to the north, near the strategic crossroads of the city of Izyum, Russia has deployed 22 battalion tactical groups as it seeks to advance along Donbas’s northern axis, the British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. Each unit usually has about 800 soldiers.
Despite struggling to break through Ukrainian defenses and build momentum, Russia likely intends to go beyond Izyum to capture the cities of Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, as they attempt to cut off Ukrainian forces in the region, according to the British assessment. . However, Moscow’s momentum has been slow as Ukrainian fighters dig in and use long-range weapons, such as howitzers, to attack the Russians.
The United States believes the Ukrainians in recent days have pushed Russian forces some 25 miles east of Kharkiv, which lies outside Donbas but is key to the offensive there. Extending the distance from the front line makes it more difficult for Russia to target the city with artillery fire.
The industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine, Donbas, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk, remains Moscow’s declared target after failing to take kyiv in the first weeks of the war.
Explosions were also heard in Lviv, in western Ukraine, near the Polish border. The attacks damaged three electrical substations, cut power to parts of the city and cut off water supplies, injuring two people, the mayor said. Lviv has been a gateway for NATO-supplied weapons and a haven for those fleeing fighting in the east.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said Russian aircraft and artillery hit hundreds of targets the day before, including troop strongholds, command posts, artillery positions, fuel and ammunition depots and radar equipment.
Ukrainian authorities said the Russians also attacked at least half a dozen railway stations across the country.
The assault on the Azovstal steel plant began nearly two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military not to storm the plant to finish off defenders, but instead to blockade it. The first, and so far only, civilians to be evacuated from the shattered plant came out during a brief ceasefire in an operation overseen by the UN and the Red Cross.
“I am very happy to be on Ukrainian soil,” said a woman who gave only her first name, Anna, and arrived with two children, ages 1 and 9. “We thought we weren’t going to get out of there, frankly speaking. .”
In addition to the 101 people evacuated from the steelworks, 58 joined the convoy in a town outside Mariupol, Lubrani said. Some 30 people who left the plant decided to stay in Mariupol to try to find out if their loved ones were alive, Lubrani said. A total of 127 evacuees arrived in Zaporizhzhia, he said.
The Russian military has previously said that some of the evacuees chose to remain in areas controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.
Mariupol has come to symbolize the human misery inflicted by war. The Russians’ two-month siege of the strategic southern port has trapped civilians with little or no food, water, medicine or heating, while Moscow forces reduced the city to rubble. The plant in particular has captivated the outside world.
The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to fight in other parts of the Donbas.
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Associated Press writers Inna Varenytsia and David Keyton in Kyiv, Jon Gambrell and Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, and AP staff around the world contributed to this report.
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