Fifty more civilians, including 11 children, have been rescued from the tunnels under a besieged steel plant in Mariupol. Ukrainian fighters have been making their last stand to prevent Moscow’s complete takeover of the strategically important port city.
of tunnels and bunkers beneath the Azovstal steelworks, and they have repeatedly refused to surrender. Ukraine has said a few hundred civilians were also trapped there, and fears for their safety have increased as the battle has grown fiercer in recent days.
If nothing is done to save her husband and his men, they will “stand to the end without surrender,” she told The Associated Press on Friday as she and relatives of some of regiment members drove from Italy to Poland.
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 elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin says is now its chief objective.
Ukrainian officials warned residents to be vigilant and heed air raid warnings, saying the risk of massive shelling had increased with Victory Day approaching. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said authorities would reinforce street patrols in the capital. — The Ukrainian governor of the eastern Luhansk region said residents of the city of Kreminna were being terrorized by Russian troops trying to cross the Seversky Donets River. Serhiy Haidai accused Russian troops of checking phones and “forcibly disappearing Ukrainian patriots.” His statements could not be immediately verified.