Russian forces killed 10 workers in the shelling of a factory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, Kyiv said on Tuesday, as Moscow launched a major assault to seize the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.
Scores of civilians who were evacuated from the site in the port city reached safety on Tuesday, with Mariupol’s mayor Vadym Boichenko, who left during the two-month-long siege, saying about 200 civilians remained in Azovstal along with an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers.
He accused Russian troops of “deporting” almost 40,000 Mariupol residents to Russia instead of letting them flee to government-controlled areas of Ukraine.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, which is now largely held by Russia, said at least 10 people were killed and 15 injured on Tuesday in a Russian artillery strike on a vast coke plant in the frontline city of Avdiivka.
“Russians knew exactly where to hit – workers just finished the shift and waited for a bus,” he wrote on Twitter.
In Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast of Donetsk region, a Ukrainian officer inside Azovstal said Russia had launched “a powerful assault” on the plant “with the support of armoured vehicles, tanks, attempts to land on boats and a large number of infantry”.
“We will do everything possible to repel this assault,” said Capt Sviatoslav Palamar of the Azov regiment. “We call for immediate action to evacuate civilians from the plant’s grounds and transport them safely to . . .Ukrainian-controlled territory.”
Carrying evacuees
Buses carrying evacuees away from Azovstal arrived in the city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday evening.
“Thanks to the operation, 101 women, men, children, and older persons could finally leave the bunkers below the Azovstal steelworks and see the daylight after two months,” said United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator for Ukraine Osnat Lubrani.
“The people I travelled with told me heartbreaking stories of the hell they went through. I’m thinking about the people who remain trapped. We will do all we can to assist them.”
Russian president Vladimir Putin insists his forces are only striking military targets and in talks by telephone with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, he accused the Kyiv government of “atrocities” and urged the West to stop supplying it with weapons.
