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The Russian army and pro-Russian forces launched an offensive against the Azovstal steel mill, the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the city of
Mariupol
(southern Ukraine), from which hundreds of civilians have been evacuated in recent days thanks to a halt the fire.
"Units of the Russian army and the Donetsk People's Republic, using artillery and aircraft, began to destroy" the "firing positions" of Ukrainian fighters, the Defense Ministry said, quoted by Russian agencies.
Russia assures that the attack took place after the Ukrainian soldiers who were still resisting in the steel mill took advantage of the ceasefire to take up firing positions.
"A ceasefire was declared, civilians had to be evacuated from the Azovstal territory. Azov and the Ukrainian military, who are stationed at the plant, took advantage of it. They came out of the basement, took up firing positions on the territory and in the building from the factory," the RIA news agency quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying.
Ukraine had announced today that the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol was resuming.
"Mariupol: the evacuation continues," the Ukrainian presidency announced in a morning report.
The municipal authorities of this port city south of Donbas, almost entirely occupied by the Russians, announced on Monday night an
agreement for an evacuation with the support of the UN and the Red Cross.
According to kyiv, more than 100 civilians were evacuated over the weekend from the Azovstal plant, the last Ukrainian holdout in Mariupol, where soldiers and civilians remain sheltered in a maze of underground tunnels.
But on Monday, in Zaporizhia, 200 km to the northwest, a parking lot converted into a reception point for refugees did not see any convoy arrive from Mariupol, key in Russian plans to unite the territories under its control in Donbas (to the east). and Crimea (in the south of the country).
Yesterday, the Azov battalion denounced new Russian bombardments, "even against buildings where there are civilians."
According to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, "hundreds of civilians" remain "locked up in Azovstal."
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