(Kyiv) Ukraine on Wednesday offered Russia a “special session of negotiations” in Mariupol, a besieged port city on the Sea of Azov, to save “civilians and soldiers”, said two Ukrainian negotiators.
Posted at 4:52 p.m.
“We are ready to hold a special negotiating session in Mariupol. To save our guys, (the battalion) Azov, soldiers, civilians, children, the living and the wounded. Everyone, ”wrote Mikhaïlo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on his Twitter account.
“We are ready to come with Mykhailo Podolyak at any time for these negotiations, as soon as we receive confirmation from the Russian side,” said Ukrainian chief negotiator David Arakhamia on his Telegram channel.
After weeks of fighting, the city appears to be falling to Russian forces, which have stepped up their strikes, according to one of the beleaguered Ukrainian military commanders in Mariupol.
“The enemy is 10 times more numerous than us,” said Serguiï Volyna, of the 36and marine infantry brigade.
According to President Zelensky, the Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the vast steel complex of Azovstal, the last island of resistance in the city, “protect at the cost of their lives […] around a thousand civilians, women and children”.
Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov battalion, one of the two Ukrainian formations still resisting Mariupol, stressed in a video message on Telegram on Wednesday that the situation was “critical” in the factory pounded by the Russian air force with “bombs super powerful”. He called on international leaders to “save first and foremost” the civilians inside the factory.
The humanitarian corridor from Mariupol, the first since Saturday, has not worked, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced in the evening, accusing the Russians of having violated the ceasefire and blocked buses.