ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine —
Mariupol could fall
into Russian hands within “hours”, a Ukrainian official said, as the enemies
agreed Wednesday to a humanitarian corridor for civilians to flee the
devastated port city following a two-month siege.
اضافة اعلان
As fighting raged in the country’s east and south,
the president of the European Council Charles Michel arrived in
Kyiv, where he
vowed the EU would do “everything possible” to help Ukraine win the war.
“You are not alone. We are with you,” Michel said
during a press conference alongside
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Michel’s visit comes as the West continues to pour
weapons into Ukraine amid a renewed Russian push into the eastern Donbas region
where a new offensive launched this week has led to an uptick in fighting.
Hours ahead of Michel’s arrival, the Pentagon said
that
Ukraine had recently received fighter planes and parts to bolster its air
force, following repeated calls from Kyiv for heavier weapons.
Ukraine’s air force later hit back at the claim,
saying they had only received spare parts to help replenish their existing
fleet and had not been given additional aircraft.
The announcement
came as the battle for Mariupol appeared to be nearing a crucial tipping point,
after nearly two months of devastating fighting that has seen untold numbers of
civilians trapped and killed.
Control of Mariupol and the separatist-controlled
Donbas region in the east would allow Moscow to create a southern corridor to
the
Crimean Peninsula that it annexed in 2014, depriving Ukraine of much of its
coastline.
In the latest ultimatum issued in its battle to
capture Mariupol, Moscow made another call for the city’s defenders to
surrender on Wednesday by 2pm Moscow time (1100 GMT) and announced the opening
of a humanitarian corridor for any
Ukrainian troops who agreed to lay down
their arms.
As the deadline approached, a commander in the
besieged Azovstal steel plant issued a desperate plea for help, saying his
marines were “maybe facing our last days, if not hours”.
“The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to one,” Serhiy
Volyna from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade said.
“We appeal and plead to all world leaders to help
us. We ask them to use the procedure of extraction and take us to the territory
of a third-party state.”
Thousands of troops and civilians remain holed up in
the plant.
An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol described a
“horrible situation” in the encircled complex and reported that up to 2,000
people — mostly women and children — are without “normal” supplies of drinking
water, food and fresh air.
Svyatoslav Palamar, a commander in the nationalist
Azov battalion defending Mariupol, said the
Russian attack on the sprawling
steel complex was relentless.
“Powerful bombs have been dropped several times on
Azovstal, we have been bombed from boats... we are under siege. The front is
360 degrees,” said Palamar in a post on Telegram, adding that hundreds of
civilians were also trapped at the plant.
“The situation is critical, we call on international
leaders to help the children,” he added.
Offering some respite,
Kyiv said early Wednesday it
had agreed with Russian forces to open a safe route for civilians to flee the
devastated city.
“We have managed to get a preliminary agreement on a
humanitarian corridor for women, children and elderly persons,” Deputy Prime
Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
‘Violent deaths’
Elsewhere on the frontlines,
Ukraine’s defense ministry reported its troops had beaten back a Russian attack
in the city of Izium, south of the partly blockaded second city of Kharkiv in
the east.
Kyiv also claimed enemy losses in a Ukrainian
counter-attack near the town of Marinka in Donetsk.
Separately, Russia on Wednesday said its forces had
launched 73 airstrikes across Ukraine, hitting dozens of locations where troops
were concentrated.
In eastern Ukraine’s Kramatorsk, a large city in the
Donetsk region, residents were already bracing for the worst.
“It’s going to be a mess,” said Alexander, 53.
“There’s nothing good to expect.”
Further from the frontlines, residents were still
reeling weeks after Russian forces withdrew from the area near the capital
Kyiv.
At a morgue in Bucha, families carefully searched
body bags and examined cadavers looking for missing loved ones.
In the car park of the small communal morgue, the
body bags arrived in carts or were piled up in trailers, vans and
non-refrigerated trucks.
Four hundred bodies have been discovered since the
Russians withdrew on March 31, local police chief Vitaly Lobas told AFP. Around
a quarter of them are still unidentified.
“The majority died violent deaths” and were shot, Lobas
said, declining to provide a concrete figure at this stage.
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