The first civilians evacuated from the besieged Mariupol steel plant head to safety

The first civilians evacuated from the bombed-out steel plant that has become the last bastion of Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol slowly made their way to safety on Monday, while others who managed to escape the city described horrific weeks of shelling and deprivation.

More than 100 civilians, including elderly women and mothers with young children, left the sprawling and rubble-strewn Azovstal steel plant on Sunday, setting off in buses and ambulances for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, some 230 kilometers (140 miles). 140 miles) from the northwest, according to authorities and video released by the two parties.

Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC the evacuees were moving slowly and would probably not arrive as expected on Monday. Authorities gave no explanation for the delay.

Apparently at least some of the civilians were taken to a village controlled by Russian-backed separatists. The Russian military said some chose to stay in breakaway areas, while dozens went to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Ukraine has in the past accused Moscow troops of taking civilians against their will to Russia or Russian-controlled areas. The Kremlin has denied this.

Orlov said that high-level negotiations were taking place between Ukraine, Russia and international organizations on further evacuations.

The evacuation of the steel plant, if successful, would represent unusual progress in alleviating the human cost of the nearly 10-week war, which has caused particular suffering in Mariupol. Previous attempts to open safe corridors out of the southern port city and elsewhere have failed, with Ukrainian officials accusing Russian forces of shooting and shelling along agreed-upon evacuation routes.

Before the weekend evacuation, overseen by the United Nations and the Red Cross during a brief ceasefire around the steelworks, some 1,000 civilians were believed to be at the plant, along with some 2,000 Ukrainian defenders. Russia has demanded that the fighters surrender; they have refused.

Up to 100,000 people in total may still be in Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of more than 400,000. Russian forces have reduced much of the city to rubble, trapping civilians with little food, water, heat or medicine.

Some Mariupol residents left the city on their own, in often damaged private cars.

As sunset approached, Mariupol resident Yaroslav Dmytryshyn arrived at a reception center in Zaporizhzhia in a car with a back seat full of young people and two signs taped to the rear window: “Children” and “Little “.

“I can’t believe we survived,” he said, looking worn but in good spirits at his safe arrival after two days on the road.

“There is no Mariupol at all,” he said. “Somebody needs to rebuild it, and it will take millions of tons of gold.” He said they lived across the train tracks from the steel plant. “Ruined,” he said. “The factory is completely gone.”

Anastasiia Dembytska, who took advantage of the ceasefire to leave with her daughter, nephew and dog, said her family survived by cooking on a makeshift stove and drinking well water. She said that she could see the steel structure from her window, when she dared to look outside.

“We could see the rockets flying” and clouds of smoke above the plant, he said.

Most of the dozen Russian battalion tactical groups that had been around Mariupol have moved north to other battlefronts in eastern Ukraine, according to a senior US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the assessment. of the Pentagon. The official said Russian forces made minimal gains over the weekend.

In other developments, European Union energy ministers met Monday to discuss new sanctions against the Kremlin, which could include restrictions on Russian oil. But some members of the 27-nation bloc dependent on Russia, including Hungary and Slovakia, are wary of taking tough action.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped more people would be able to leave Mariupol in an organized evacuation on Monday. The city council told residents who wanted to leave to gather at a shopping center to wait for buses.

Zelensky told Greek state television that civilians left at the steel plant were afraid to board the buses because they feared they would be taken to Russia. He said that the UN had assured him that they would be allowed to go to the areas controlled by his government.

Following the evacuation of the plant, Russian forces resumed shelling on Sunday, according to one of the advocates.

Denys Shlega, commander of the Ukrainian National Guard’s 12th Operational Brigade, said in a televised interview that several hundred civilians remained trapped along with nearly 500 wounded soldiers and “numerous” bodies.

“Several dozen small children are still in the bunkers under the plant,” Shlega said.

Thwarted in his bid to seize the capital kyiv, President Vladimir Putin has shifted his focus to Donbas, the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014.

Russia said it hit dozens of military targets in the region in the last day alone. It said it hit troop and weapons concentrations and an ammunition depot near Chervone in the Zaporizhzhia region, which is west of Donbas.

Ukrainian and Western officials say Moscow’s troops are raining down fire indiscriminately, taking a heavy toll on civilians as they inch forward.

Zelensky’s office said at least three people were killed in the Donbas in the past 24 hours. The Zaporizhzhia regional administration reported that at least two people were killed in the Russian bombing.

The governor of the Odessa region along the Black Sea coast, Maksym Marchenko, said on the Telegram messaging app that a Russian missile attack on an Odessa infrastructure target caused deaths and injuries. He did not give details.

Ukraine claimed to have destroyed two small Russian patrol boats in the Black Sea. Drone footage online showed what the Ukrainians described as two Russian Raptor boats exploding after being hit by missiles.

Mariupol, which is located in Donbas, is key to Russia’s campaign in the east. Its capture 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 elsewhere in the region.

It is difficult to capture a complete picture of the battle unfolding in eastern Ukraine. The fighting makes it dangerous for reporters to move around, and both sides have placed strict restrictions on reporting from the combat zone.

But Britain’s Defense Ministry said it believes more than a quarter of all combat units Russia has deployed to Ukraine are now “combat ineffective,” unable to fight due to loss of troops or equipment.

Ukraine said Russia also hit a strategic road and rail bridge west of Odessa. The bridge was heavily damaged in previous Russian attacks, and its destruction would cut off a supply route for weapons and other cargo from neighboring Romania.

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