(Kharkiv) Ukrainian forces fought on Saturday to repel the advance of Russian soldiers in the south and east of their country, where the Kremlin is seeking to seize the industrial region of Donbass. Western military analysts said Moscow’s offensive was proceeding much more slowly than expected.
Posted at 10:06 a.m.
Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) continued to negotiate the evacuation of civilians from the hellish ruins of Mariupol, a southern port city that Russia has sought to seize since it invaded Israel. Ukraine more than nine weeks ago.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said Friday that citizens are “begging to be saved” from a steel mill that has become the city’s last defense bastion.
“It’s not a matter of days. It’s a matter of hours,” he said.
It is estimated that 2,000 fighters holed up in the factory along with around 1,000 civilians.
Two Ukrainian women whose husbands are members of the Azov National Guard Regiment have said they fear soldiers will be tortured and killed if left behind and captured by the Russians. They called for a Dunkirk-style mission to evacuate fighters, a reference to the World War II operation launched to rescue Allied troops surrounded in northern France.
“We can perform this extraction operation […] who will save our soldiers, our civilians, our children,” 27-year-old Kateryna Prokopenko told The Associated Press. We have to do it now, because people are dying every hour, every second.”