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Ukrainian rebels holed up in a vast steel plant in the last known pocket of resistance inside the destroyed city of Mariupol refused a surrender-or-die ultimatum from Russia on Sunday and resisted the control of the strategically critical port. The fall of Mariupol, the site of a relentless seven-week siege that has reduced much of the city to a smoking ruin, would be Moscow’s biggest win of the war, freeing up soldiers for a potentially decisive battle for control of Ukraine’s industrial east. Capturing the southern city would also allow Russia to fully secure a land passage to the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as well as deprive Ukraine of a vital port and valued industrial assets. As Russian missiles and rockets pounded into other sections of the nation, Russia calculated that 2,500 Ukrainian forces and 400 foreign mercenaries were holed up at the enormous Azovstal steel factory, which covers more than 11 square kilometres (4 square miles) and is connected with tunnels.
Many Mariupol people, including children, are also taking refuge at the Azovstal plant, according to Mikhail Vershinin, the city’s patrol police chief, who spoke to Mariupol television on Sunday. He claims they are hiding from Russian artillery as well as any occupying Russian troops. Moscow had set a lunchtime deadline for the defenders to surrender and “save their lives,” but the Ukrainians ignored it, as they had earlier ultimatums. “We will fight to the end, to the victory, in this battle,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal pledged on ABC’s “This Week.” He stated that Ukraine is willing to end the war through negotiation if possible, but “we have no intention of surrendering.” In the case of besieged Mariupol, there appeared to be little chance Sunday of a military rescue by Ukrainian forces anytime soon. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the remaining Ukrainian military and people in Mariupol are essentially surrounded. He stated that they “continue their resistance,” but that the city “essentially no longer exists” due to tremendous destruction.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted Easter greetings, stating, “The Lord’s Resurrection is a testimony to the victory of life over death, good over evil.” If Mariupol falls, Russian forces there are anticipated to start an all-out onslaught in the following days for control of the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial region that the Kremlin is determined to capture after failing in its quest to take Kyiv, the country’s capital.
Out of a prewar population of 450,000, an estimated 100,000 remained in the city, imprisoned without food, water, heat, or power in a siege that has resulted in some of the worst suffering of the war. “All those who continue to resist will be destroyed,” stated Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, in presenting the latest ultimatum. Drone footage obtained by the Russian news outlet RIA-Novosti showed towering plumes of smoke above the steel plant, which is located on the outskirts of the bombed-out city on the Sea of Azov.As Russian soldiers prepare for conflict in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already hold some territory, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar hailed Mariupol as a “shield shielding Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Russian forces carried out aerial attacks near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent attempt to degrade Ukraine’s military capacity ahead of the anticipated onslaught. Following the embarrassing sinking of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet’s flagship last week in what Ukrainians claimed was a missile attack, the Kremlin promised to increase attacks on Kiev. Russia announced on Sunday that it had hit an ammunition complex in Kyiv overnight with precision-guided missiles, the third such strike in as many days. Explosions were also reported overnight in Kramatorsk, the eastern city where rockets earlier this month killed at least 57 people at a train station crammed with residents attempting to flee the Russian advance. On Sunday, at least five people were killed by Russian shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to regional officials.
The barrage slammed into apartment buildings and left the streets littered with broken glass and other debris, including a piece of at least one rocket. In an impassioned address celebrating Orthodox Palm Sunday, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov lashed out at Russian soldiers for continuing their bombing campaign on such a holy day. In his nightly speech to the country, Zelenskyy labelled the Kharkiv blast “deliberate terror.”According to a regional official in eastern Ukraine, at least two persons were killed when Russian soldiers opened fire on residential houses in the town of Zolote, near the battle line in the Donbas. Zelenskyy claimed that Russian troops in portions of southern Ukraine were torturing and kidnapping civilians, and he urged the international community to respond with additional weaponry and stiffer sanctions. “Torture rooms are being created there,” he warned in his speech. “They kidnap officials of local administrations and anyone deemed visible to local communities.”
Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, claimed the Russians were still bombing Mariupol and could be preparing for an amphibious operation to reinforce their ground soldiers. The coming onslaught in the east, if successful, would offer Russian President Vladimir Putin a critical piece of the country and a much-needed win that he could sell to the Russian people in the midst of the war’s mounting casualties and the economic misery inflicted by Western sanctions. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met with Putin in Moscow this week — the first European leader to do so since the February 24 incursion — claimed the Russian president is “in his own war logic” on Ukraine. In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nehammer stated that he believes Putin feels he is winning the fight, and that “we have to look in his eyes and confront him with what we see in Ukraine.”
