Anguish for partners of Mariupol’s defenders as Russian assault goes on
“Holding up”, wrote Denys Prokopenko, commander of Ukraine’s Azov regiment, in his latest WhatsApp message to his wife Kateryna from the besieged Azovstal steelworks in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
Speaking via Zoom from Krakow, in eastern Poland, alongside three fellow wives and partners of soldiers living under the remorseless Russian shelling and infiltrating raids, Kateryna, 27, says she is doing everything she can think of to ensure the message at 10pm on Friday evening is not one of her husband’s last.
It is now two weeks since the last Ukrainian defenders of the flattened city of Mariupol, in south-east Ukraine, withdrew to the sprawling complex of hot and fetid tunnels, along with thousands of terrified civilians, including children.
For the 2,000 soldiers, 700 of whom are said to be injured, hope, however, is quickly dwindling, as has become cruelly clear from the irregular messages coming out of the works. “The last message was yesterday,” Kateryna says of the text from her 30-year-old husband. I said ‘Hold up, we will do everything in our power to save you.’”
The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian cultural monuments and institutions, saying that “nearly 200 cultural heritage sites already” had been damaged or destroyed.
His comments, made in his nightly address on Telegram on Saturday, followed the destruction of a museum dedicated to the 18th century philosopher and poet Hryhoriy Skovoroda after it was hit by Russian shelling.
“Targeted missile strikes at museums — this is not even every terrorist can think of,” said Zelenskiy.
“Every day of this war, the Russian army does something that is beyond words. But every next day it does something that makes you feel it in a new way.”
Fighters battle to hold in Mariupol
With supplies running low, amputations conducted in a ramshackle clinic, and corpses piling up, the fighters trapped at the besieged steel plant in Ukraine’s Mariupol are battling to hold on as Russian forces tighten their grip on the city’s last redoubt.
A smattering of Ukrainian units making their last stand are sheltering in the labyrinth of Soviet-era bunkers and tunnels snaking beneath the sprawling steelworks along with an untold number of wounded and dead combatants.
Details about the chaotic final defence and desperate efforts to tend to the wounded have been painstakingly pieced together by military medic Yevgenia Tytarenko, whose husband and colleagues remain trapped inside the factory.
“Lots of soldiers are in serious condition in the hospital. They are injured with no medicine. Food and water are running out,” said Tytarenko, who remains in regular contact with people inside the Azovstal plant.
“I’ll be standing until the end,” Tytarenko’s husband and medic Mykhailo texted to her on Friday, in a message shared with AFP.
For weeks, Russian forces have pounded the steelworks by land, air, and sea – while attempting to breach its defenses that have led to fierce firefights at the facility.
Commanders have issued their final goodbyes to loved ones as supplies dwindle and the Russians close in, while the possibility of extracting the fighters looks increasingly unlikely, said Tytarenko.
“Commanders have already said their farewells to their wives. One of them messaged his wife: ‘Don’t cry. We’ll be back home in any case – alive or dead’,” said Tytarenko.
Tytarenko described a chaotic and complex operation inside Azovstal with fighters battling the Russians while also shepherding civilians along with the bodies of those killed to different parts of the plant.
Without refrigeration, the bodies of the dead have been packed in plastic bags and are rotting, but the fighters remain committed to preventing them from falling into the hands of the Russian forces.
“Almost everywhere, they are carrying corpses with them,” said Tytarenko. “They deserve to be evacuated – those who are alive, injured, and dead.”
Speaking in his nightly Telegram address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that over 300 civilians had been rescued from Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where they had been trapped for 72 days.
“I am grateful to the teams of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Organisation, who helped us organise the first phase of the evacuation missions from Azovstal,” Zelenskiy said in a video posted to Telegram.
However, while the Ukrainian government said that “all women, children and the elderly” had been evacuated , there were still doctors and soldiers, including many wounded, stuck in the bunkers of the Mariupol steel plant, which is still undergoing vicious shelling and attacks by Russian forces.
Ukraine on Saturday urged aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to evacuate its soldiers from their last holdout in Mariupol.
Ukraine “calls on MSF to organise a mission to evacuate the defenders of Mariupol and Azovstal and provide medical care to the wounded people, whose human rights were violated by Russian Federation,” the ministry of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine wrote in a statement in English.
They have been “for 72 days in a row under… ongoing shelling and attacks by the Russian army”, it added.
“Now, there is a lack of medicines, water and food, wounded soldiers are dying because of gangrene and sepsis.”
Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Here are the latest developments:
- Russian forces fired six cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa on Saturday and continued to bombarded a besieged steel mill in Mariupol. Russia appears to want to complete their conquest of Mariupol in time for Victory Day celebrations on 9 May.
- The Ukrainian government has said that it has destroyed another Russian ship. The ministry of defence claimed that Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 had hit the landing craft of the Serna project, tweeting: “The traditional parade of the Russian Black Sea fleet on May 9 this year will be held near Snake Island – at the bottom of the sea.”
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said more than 300 civilians have been rescued from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where they had been stuck for 72 days during a bitter battle for the city. Zelenskiy said they were now preparing for a “second stage of evacuation” to rescue doctors and soldiers still trapped there. The Ukrainian government have urged Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to help with the evacuation
- Zelenskiy also expressed regret at the cultural devastation caused by the war. In his nightly address on Telegram, he said “nearly 200 cultural heritage sites” in Ukraine had been lost or damaged
- A Russian bomb hit a school in the eastern Ukraine village of Bilogorivka where 90 people were sheltering, according to the governor of Luhansk. He said several bodies had been pulled from the rubble.
- CIA Director William Burns said the war is in a dangerous phase because President Putin “thinks he cannot afford to lose” . Burns said the huge amount of western military support for Ukraine was not a deterrent to the Russian President
- Britain has pledged to provide another £1.3bn ($1.60bn) in military support and aid to Ukraine. The new funds will almost double Britain’s previous spending commitments to Ukraine. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement, “Putin’s brutal attack is not only causing untold devastation in Ukraine – it is also threatening peace and security across Europe.”
- The Group of Seven (G7) leaders will hold a video call on Sunday with Zelenskiy in a show of unity the day before Russia marks its Victory Day holiday, the White House said. Talks will focus on the latest developments in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, efforts to bolster the country and ways to demonstrate “continued G7 unity in our collective response, including by imposing severe costs for Putin’s war”, a spokesperson for the White House said.