Mayor Vadym Boichenko of Mariupol, the besieged city in Ukraine, said they had lost contact with soldiers who were bunkering down inside a steel plant against Russian military forces.
The official said that the troops were in the middle of a heavy firefight with Moscow's forces on Wednesday. In a statement, Boichenko confirmed that there was "heavy fighting" in the Azovstal steel plant.
Contact With Mariupol Soldiers
Boichenko said that city officials could not contact Ukrainian forces who were still inside the plant and had no way of knowing what was happening and whether or not they were safe. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military said that Russian forces launched an offensive to rout troops inside the steel plant.
The incident comes shortly after the United Nations, and Red Cross confirmed that more than 100 civilians were evacuated from the steel plant. On the other hand, Russia confirmed that it was assaulting Ukrainian positions at the plant using artillery and aircraft. But on Wednesday, the Kremlin denied that its forces were storming Azovstal, as per CBS News.
The Mariupol mayor said that Russia used heavy artillery, tanks, warplanes, and warships to attack the city. Boichenko said that there were local residents in the area, including more than 30 children. The region is one of the worst-struck cities amid the unprovoked Russian-Ukraine invasion.
It was believed that busloads of families who were holed up in Soviet-era tunnels underneath the steel plant were among the evacuees over the weekend. The agreed-upon ceasefire allowed for civilians to escape to the relative safety of Ukrainian-held territory in the city of Zaporizhzhia.
According to CNN, evacuees headed straight for tents that the Ukrainian government set up to help them with the next part of their journey. President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his nightly address on Tuesday that 156 people arrived in the city.
The Situation in the Port City
The evacuees also described the horrors they experienced while under siege in Mariupol and surrounded by Russian forces. Women and elderly civilians said they had lived for more than a month without sunlight as they feared for their lives and had food shortages.
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Osnat Lubrani, said that the evacuees saw the sunlight for the first time in a long time and saw the destruction of their city. A red-haired woman who was among the evacuees said that she had trouble believing the reality of her escape from Mariupol.
As she tried to speak, tears filled her eyes, and she just shook her head, saying she had no words to answer questions. If Russia successfully takes control of Mariupol, it would mark a significant victory as the Azovstal steel plant is the last Ukrainian redoubt in the region.
Furthermore, the port city is critical for Russia's hopes of forming an unbroken land corridor that stretches from the eastern Donbas region that borders Russia to the Crimean peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014. Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters are believed to be held up in the plant and are holding back the Russian assault, the Washington Post reported.
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