(Kyiv) “Heavy fighting” is underway at the Azovstal site in Mariupol, Mayor Vadim Boïtchenko said on Wednesday, moments after Moscow assured not to carry out an assault on this huge factory where fighters are entrenched Ukrainians.
Posted at 9:55 a.m.
“Unfortunately there is heavy fighting in Azovstal today,” Boitchenko told Ukrainian television.
“We lost contact with the guys. We cannot know what is going on there, whether they are safe or not,” he added.
According to him, “heavy artillery, tanks (and) aviation” are at work in this Russian offensive, as well as “ships that approached” the coasts, the territory of Azovstal being along from the Sea of Azov.
“Our guys are brave and are defending the fortress, but it’s really difficult”, he greeted on Ukrainian television, considering that “having held back the enemy” for weeks, the last fighters entrenched in the underground passages of the huge Azovstal metallurgical complex “had saved time”.
Vadim Boitchenko once again assured that there were “civilians, hundreds there”, but also “children waiting to be rescued”. “There are more than 30,” he said.
A Ukrainian commander of the Azov regiment defending the steel plant said on Tuesday that the Russians had launched “a powerful assault” on the site, but the Kremlin denied this information on Wednesday.
“The order was given (April 21) publicly by the Commander-in-Chief (Vladimir Putin) to call off any assault. There is no assault” at the moment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
He added that Moscow forces were besieging the site and only intervening to “very quickly stop attempts” by Ukrainian fighters to reach “firing positions”.