By Natalia Zinets
KYIV/NOVOAZOVSK, Ukraine (Reuters) – Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday it was working to evacuate all remaining troops from its last stronghold in the besieged port of Mariupol, ceding control of the city to Russia after months of shelling. .
The evacuation of hundreds of fighters, many wounded, to Russian-held cities likely marked the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukraine war and a significant defeat for Ukraine. Mariupol now lies in ruins after a Russian siege that Ukraine says killed tens of thousands of people in the city.
“The ‘Mariupol’ garrison has fulfilled its combat mission,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement.
“The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed in Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel… The defenders of Mariupol are the heroes of our time,” he added.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar said 53 wounded soldiers from the steelworks were taken to a hospital in the Russian-controlled city of Novoazovsk, some 32 kilometers (20 miles) to the east, while another 211 people were taken. to the city of Olenivka. in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
All evacuees will be subject to a possible prisoner swap with Russia, it added.
Around 600 soldiers are believed to have been inside the steel plant. Ukraine’s military said efforts were underway to evacuate those still inside.
“We hope we can save the lives of our boys,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a morning speech. “There are serious injuries among them. They are getting attention. Ukraine needs living Ukrainian heroes.”
Reuters saw five buses carrying troops from Azovstal arrive in Novoazovsk on Monday night. In one, marked with a Z like many Russian military vehicles in Ukraine, the men were stacked on stretchers in three levels. One man was wheeled out, his head tightly wrapped in thick bandages.
Heavy bombardment REPORTED
Ukrainian fighters in recent days have pushed Russian forces out of the area near Kharkiv, the largest city in the east, after previously occupying the capital kyiv and its environs.
But fierce fighting and shelling continued in a wide area of the east of the country.
Zelenskiy’s office said on Tuesday that the entire front line around Donetsk is under constant massive shelling, while in the northern Chernihiv region, a missile attack on the village of Desna killed and wounded an unspecified number of people. .
Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces were reinforcing and preparing to renew their offensive near Slovyansk and Drobysheve, southeast of the strategic city of Izyum, after suffering losses elsewhere.
Areas around Kyiv and the western city of Lviv, near the Polish border, have continued to come under Russian attack. A series of explosions hit Lviv early Tuesday, a Reuters witness said. One missile hit a military facility but there were no casualties, according to Zelenskiy’s office.
A village in Russia’s western Kursk province, on the border with Ukraine, was attacked by Ukraine on Tuesday, regional governor Roman Starovoit said. Three houses and a school were attacked but no one was injured, he said.
Russian border guards returned fire to quell large-caliber weapons fire in the border village of Alekseyevka, Starovoit wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the details of the battlefield accounts.
Moscow calls its nearly three-month invasion a “special military operation” to rid Ukraine of fascists, a claim kyiv and its Western allies say is an unfounded pretext for an unprovoked war.
PUTIN’S RISE ON NATO
Zelenskiy planned to speak with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macro on Tuesday, his office said.
Russia has faced massive sanctions for its actions in Ukraine, but EU foreign ministers failed to pressure Hungary on Monday to lift its veto on a proposed oil embargo.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner has said he is open to the idea of seizing Russian state assets to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction.
McDonald’s Corp has become one of the biggest global brands to come out of Russia, with plans to sell all of its restaurants after operating in the country for more than 30 years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to back down on Monday from threats of retaliation against Sweden and Finland for announcing plans to join the US-led NATO military alliance.
“As far as expansion is concerned, including new members Finland and Sweden, Russia has no problems with these states, none. And, in this regard, there is no immediate threat to Russia of an expansion to include these countries,” he said. Putin.
The comments appeared to mark a major shift in rhetoric, after years of presenting NATO enlargement as a direct threat to Russia’s security, even citing it as a justification for invading Ukraine.
Putin said the United States was using NATO enlargement in an “aggressive” way to aggravate an already difficult global security situation, and that Russia would respond if the alliance advanced with weapons or troops.
Finland and Sweden, both non-aligned during the Cold War, say they now want the protection offered by the NATO treaty, under which an attack on any member is an attack on all.
However, Finland and Sweden’s plans were thwarted when the president of NATO member Turkey said he would not approve either offer.
(Reporting by Natalia Zinets in kyiv and a Reuters reporter in Novoazovsk; Additional reporting from Reuters Bureau; Writing by Rami Ayyub and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Reference-news.yahoo.com