Russian forces pushed deeper into Ukraine’s besieged and battered port city of Mariupol on Saturday, where heavy fighting shut down a major steel plant and local authorities pleaded for more western help.
The fall of Mariupol, the scene of some of the war’s worst suffering, would mark a major battlefield advance for the Russians, who are largely bogged down outside major cities more than three weeks into the invasion.
“Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the Earth,” Mariupol police officer Michail Vershnin said from a rubble-strewn street in a video addressed to western leaders that was authenticated by the Associated Press.
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Russian forces have already cut the city off from the Sea of Azov, and its fall would link Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, to territories controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in the east. It would mark a rare advance in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance that has dashed Russia’s hopes for a quick victory and galvanized the West.
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Ukrainian and Russian forces battled over the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Vadym Denysenko, adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Saturday. “One of the largest metallurgical plants in Europe is actually being destroyed,” Mr Denysenko said in televised remarks.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, said the nearest forces that could assist Mariupol’s defenders were already struggling against “the overwhelming force of the enemy” or at least 60 miles away.
“There is currently no military solution to Mariupol,” he said late on Friday. “That is not only my opinion, that is the opinion of the military.”
More than 350,000 civilians have been stranded with little food or water in Mariupol. Russia said its forces were “tightening the noose” around the city, where an estimated 80 per cent of the city’s homes had been damaged.
A total of 6,623 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities through humanitarian corridors on Saturday, a senior official said, considerably fewer than managed to escape the previous day. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office, said in an online post that 4,128 people had left Mariupol. Mariupol. On Friday, he said 9,145 people had managed to leave cities across the country during the day.
Work continues to reach the hundreds of civilians believed to be trapped in a shelter under the city’s theatre, which was destroyed by Russian bombing on Wednesday. About 130 people have been rescued from the rubble, some seriously injured. There is no word yet on a death toll.
‘Time to meet’
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has remained defiant, appearing in a video early on Saturday shot on the streets of the capital, Kyiv, to denounce a huge Friday rally in Moscow that Russian president Vladimir Putin attended.
Mr Zelenskiy said Russia was trying to starve Ukraine’s cities into submission but warned that continuing the invasion would exact a heavy toll on Russia. He also repeated his call for Mr Putin to meet with him to prevent more bloodshed.
“The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia’s costs will be so high that you will not be able to rise again for several generations,” he said.
He called for “meaningful and fair” talks without delay, framing it as a chance for Moscow to limit the damage created by its own mistakes.
“It’s time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise Russia’s losses will be so huge that several generations will not be enough to rebound.”
“The war must end,” he added. “Ukraine’s proposals are on the table.”
Mr Putin lavished praise on his country’s military during the rally, which took place on the anniversary of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. The event included patriotic songs such as Made in the USSR, with its opening line of “Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, it’s all my country.”
“We have not had unity like this for a long time,” Mr Putin told the cheering crowd.
On Saturday, Mr Putin claimed in a call with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, that Kyiv was “attempting to stall peace talks” but Moscow was still keen to continue negotiations.
UN bodies have confirmed more than 847 civilian deaths since the war began, though they concede the actual toll is likely much higher. The UN says more than 3.3 million people have fled Ukraine as refugees.
‘Kinzhal’ missiles
Meanwhile, Russia said it fired hypersonic missiles from its “Kinzhal” system for the first time in the more than three-week invasion, to destroy an underground weapons storage site in the west of the country.
The ministry of defence said the military used Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles on Friday to target the site allegedly storing missiles and aviation ammunition in the village of Delyatyn, outside the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, according to an emailed statement.
The claimed strike marked the first use of the nuclear-capable advanced weapons system in the Ukraine war, state news service RIA Novosti said.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force command confirmed a Russian missile strike on Delyatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region on Friday, without giving further details.
Bloomberg cannot independently verify Russia’s reports.
The Kinzhal, which can carry conventional or nuclear warheads, flies 10 times faster than the speed of sound, or more than 2 miles per second, Mr Putin said when he announced the system in an annual state-of-the-nation address in 2018.
The Kinzhal was among several latest-generation strategic weapons that Mr Putin said could overcome any US missile defenses.
Mr Zelenskiy said he would continue to appeal to world leaders to call for peace in Ukraine, with plans to address Switzerland, Italy, Israel and Japan. He has spoken with Ukrainian ambassadors around the world “to intensify the supply of humanitarian goods” for displaced people in Ukraine.
Joe Biden in a two-hour call with China’s Xi Jinping “described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians”, the White House said, without giving further details.
The Chinese account of the conversation in the state news agency, Xinhua, said it was “candid and in-depth”. – Agencies