The key moments of the two-month siege of Mariupol, a strategic port in southeastern Ukraine where a last pocket of resistance remains in the vast industrial zone of Azovstal.
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On March 2, seven days after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, Russian artillery pounded Mariupol, a Russian-speaking city of 441,000 inhabitants, located about 55 kilometers from the Russian border and 85 kilometers from the separatist stronghold of Donetsk .
The mayor accuses the Russian and pro-Russian forces of seeking “to impose a blockade” by preventing the supply of the city and cutting off its “vital infrastructures”.
On the 9th, a Russian strike targeted a maternity and pediatric hospital, killing three people.
AFP
Ukraine and the European Union condemn a “war crime”, Russia says the building housed Ukrainian fighters.
In mid-March, after several unsuccessful attempts, thousands of civilians began to be evacuated via a humanitarian corridor.
On the 16th, a theater where nearly a thousand people had taken refuge was destroyed by Russian aircraft, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
AFP
Moscow denies this bombing, attributing it to the Ukrainian nationalist Azov battalion.
On the 21st, Kyiv rejected a Russian ultimatum which demanded the capitulation of Mariupol.
The EU denounces as “a major war crime” the blockade of the port city.
AFP
Civilians who fled Mariupol describe relentless shelling, residents holed up in basements and corpses littering the streets.
On the 30th, Moscow announced a local ceasefire, starting the next morning to open a humanitarian corridor.
For several days, Russians and Ukrainians blame each other for the difficulties of evacuations to Zaporijjia (Zaporojie in Russian), more than 200 km to the west.
On the night of April 1 to 2, the Ukrainian president indicates that more than 3000 people were able to be “saved”.
On April 4, Mayor Vadim Boïtchenko declares that the city is “90% destroyed”.
On the 7th, the “new mayor” proclaimed the day before by the pro-Russian forces, Konstantin Ivachchenko, estimated that 250,000 people left Mariupol but that at least as many, even 300,000 remained. Ukraine instead estimates the number of people still in town at 100,000.
AFP
On the 11th, the Ukrainian army said it was preparing for “a final battle” in Mariupol where the fighting was concentrated on the site of a vast steel industrial zone of the Azovstal group. The separatists claim to have conquered the port area.
On the 12th, the regional authorities estimated at least 20,000 the number of dead.
On the 17th, the last Mariupol fighters ignore a new Russian ultimatum.
On the 20th, Kyïv proposes a “special session of negotiations” on the fate of Mariupol, where are entrenched in the Azovstal factory “about a thousand civilians, women and children” and “hundreds of wounded”, according to the Ukrainian president.
On the 21st, Mariupol was under Russian control with the exception of the Azovstal site, declared the Russian Defense Minister.
Vladimir Putin orders to besiege “the area in such a way that not a single fly will pass”, without launching the assault, calling the “liberation of Mariupol” a “success”.
A hundred civilians, holed up for weeks in the underground passages of the factory dating from the Second World War, were evacuated from Azovstal to Zaporijjia on the weekend of May 1.
AFP
On May 3, the Russians launched a “powerful” assault with tanks and infantry on the factory, according to the Azov regiment. The Russians deny it.
On the 4th, the Russians announced a three-day ceasefire for the evacuation of civilians. The Ukrainians claim that the truce is not respected.
On the 7th, Kyiv announces the evacuation of all women, all children and all the elderly, under the aegis of the UN and the Red Cross.
AFP
In one week, nearly 500 civilians were able to flee the factory.
On the 7th, Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Zelensky requested the help of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to evacuate and treat the soldiers still present.
Reference-www.tvanouvelles.ca