Defenders of Mariupol defy ultimatum to lay down arms War in Ukraine

KYIV • Ukrainian soldiers appeared to defy a Russian ultimatum to lay down their arms yesterday in the pulverised port of Mariupol, which Moscow said its forces had almost completely seized in what would be its biggest prize of the nearly two-month war.

Remaining Ukrainian forces in the southern port are still fighting, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said yesterday.

"The city still has not fallen," Mr Shmyhal told ABC's This Week, adding that Ukrainian soldiers continue to control parts of the city. "So there is no whole control" of Mariupol by Russia, he said.

"All who lay down their arms are guaranteed that their lives will be spared," Russia's Defence Ministry said earlier, offering the defending "remnants" a four-hour window to leave the Azovstal steelworks overlooking the Sea of Azov.

Several hours after a 0300 GMT (11am Singapore time) deadline, there was no sign of surrender by Ukrainian fighters holed up in the plant.

Citing radio intercepts, Russia's Defence Ministry said the encircled defenders, including 400 "foreign mercenaries", had orders to shoot any among them who wanted to give up.

Having failed to overcome Ukrainian resistance in the north, the Russian military has refocused its ground offensive on the eastern Donbass region while maintaining long-distance strikes elsewhere, including the capital, Kyiv.

"The occupiers will be responsible for everything they did in Ukraine," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on his Telegram account, posting images of destruction he said were akin to the "terrible times" of World War II.

Capturing Mariupol, the main port in Donbass, would be a strategic prize for Russia, connecting territory held by pro-Russian separatists in the east with Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russia said last Saturday that its troops had cleared the urban area of Mariupol.

The city has seen some of the fiercest fighting and worst civilian suffering since the Feb 24 invasion, with bodies littering the rubble and thousands hunkered down in poor conditions underground.

The city's steelworks, one of Europe's biggest metallurgical plants with a maze of rail tracks and blast furnaces, has become a last stand for the outnumbered defenders. It was not known how many soldiers were in the plant.

Satellite images have shown smoke and fire coming from the area riddled with tunnels.

Russia said Ukraine had lost more than 4,000 soldiers in Mariupol as at Saturday. Kyiv says its total troop losses nationwide in the war are between 2,500 and 3,000.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, there were more reports of Russian strikes around major centres.

Local media reported an explosion in the capital Kyiv, though Deputy Mayor Mykola Povoroznyk said air defence systems had thwarted Russian attacks. The mayor of Brovary city, close to Kyiv, said a missile attack had damaged infrastructure. Russia said it had destroyed an ammunition factory near the capital, according to the RIA news agency.

As cleanup operations continued in areas where the Russians retreated, Ukraine's human rights ombudsman said almost all high-rise buildings in the town of Okhtyrka were unfit for occupation, while the State Emergency Service said 41 bodies had been recovered in Borodyanka.

Most Ukrainians celebrate Orthodox Easter, which is this Sunday, but in Bucha, a town north of Kyiv where Ukraine accuses Russia of killing dozens of civilians, about 50 people attended a service at the town's church, carrying pussy willow and praying for the dead.

Russia denies targeting civilians and has called pictures of those killed in Bucha fake.

"I just prayed today to stop crying," said resident Evgeniya Lebedko after the service. "We have survived these horrors and we are constantly crying. And I don't want those tears to fall but I go out every day... and I cry all the time."

Despite the desperate situation in Mariupol, Ukraine said it was holding off Russian forces in other parts of the Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Yesterday, Donetsk region police said that over the past 24 hours, Russian forces opened fire from tanks, multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery on 13 settlements under Ukrainian control, killing two civilians.

In the centre of north-eastern city Kharkiv, five people were killed in shelling yesterday, and 13 were injured, Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne reported, citing the local health authorities. Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said shelling of the town of Zolote yesterday killed at least two people.

REUTERS