Serguiy Volyna, from the 36th Navy Brigade, sent a message to the international community on Facebook.
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In his message, he challenges US President Joe Biden, his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A Ukrainian soldier entrenched in Mariupol launches a desperate appeal to the international community, Wednesday, April 20, so that he and the last fighters on the spot are rescued. “We may be living our last days, even our last hours”affirmed Serguiy Volyna, of the 36th brigade of the national navy in a video posted on Facebook.
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“The enemy is ten times more numerous than us, he continues. We call on and beg all world leaders to help us. We ask them to use the extraction procedure and take us to the territory of a third country.”
In this city where the authorities fear the death of 20,000 to 22,000 civilians, the fighting is concentrated around the Azovstal metallurgical complex. Moscow has sworn to take control of this strategic port in southeastern Ukraine, which would allow it to connect Crimea, annexed in 2014, and the pro-Russian separatist republics of Donbass.
Russia on Tuesday called on Mariupol defenders to stop “their senseless resistance”, after a first ultimatum on Sunday. Ukrainian fighters are entrenched there, but also “at least a thousand civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly, in the underground shelters” plant, the Mariupol city council said on Telegram on Tuesday.
Wednesday, an agreement “preliminary” was found with Russia on a humanitarian corridor to evacuate to the city of Zaporizhia “women, children and the elderly”the first agreement of this type since Saturday, announced Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk on Telegram.