Mariupol
\nAs expectations for a weekend truce dimmed, Ukraine said it will try again on Saturday to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, the devastated port city mostly controlled by Russian forces.
\nSeparately, on Saturday, a Russian strike in Odessa, on the Black Sea, killed at least five people, including a newborn, and injured 18 others, according to Kyiv.
\nOn Sunday, the war will enter its third month, with civilians continuing to bear the brunt of the conflict.
\n\u201cFive Ukrainians were killed and 18 others were injured.\u201d And those are the only ones we were able to locate. \u201cThe death toll is likely to be high,\u201d Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine\u2019s presidential office, warned on Telegram.
\n\u201cThe only purpose of Russian missile assaults on Odessa is terror,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated earlier on Saturday. Ukraine\u2019s air force claimed that two Russian TU-95 missiles fired from the Caspian Sea were intercepted by its defence systems.
\nOn Telegram, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, \u201cToday we will try to evacuate women, children, and the elderly once more.\u201d
\n\u201cIf all goes according to plan, we\u2019ll begin the evacuation about midday.\u201d
\nThe call occurred a day after a senior Russian military general announced that the \u201csecond phase of the special operation\u201d \u2014 as Moscow refers to its invasion of Ukraine \u2014 had begun, with the goal of gaining control of a large, strategically important portion of Ukrainian land.
\nThe Azov battalion, which was founded by pro-Ukrainian nationalists in 2014, was later included as a regiment in Ukraine\u2019s national guard, and has played a key part in the defence of Mariupol, released the video.
\nReuters was unable to independently verify the location or date of the video\u2019s production. The date is April 21st, according to someone speaking in the video.
\nThe video shows soldiers providing food to citizens refuge in the Azovstal complex, according to the battalion.
\nPeople in the plant were running out of food, according to a mother clutching a toddler: \u201cWe really want to go home,\u201d she added.
\nAccording to presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, Russian forces are attacking the Azovstal complex with air attacks and attempting to storm it, despite Moscow\u2019s announcement earlier this week that it would blockade the plant rather than seek to take it. According to Ukrainian authorities, the factory houses around 1,000 civilians as well as troops defending it.
\nAfter two months in the plant, one nameless youngster in the film expressed his desire to leave.
\n\u201cI\u2019d like to see the sun since it\u2019s dim in here, not like it is outdoors.\u201d We will be able to live in peace after our houses have been repaired. \u201cLet Ukraine win since it is our birthplace,\u201d he stated.
\nThe video showed ladies wearing Azovstal-style uniforms, according to Reuters.
\nOne woman claimed she had been hiding at the steel mill since February 27, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine.
\n\u201cWe are the workers\u2019 family.\u201d But here seemed to be the safest spot at the time we arrived; our house had caught fire and was rendered uninhabitable,\u201d she explained.
\nUkrainian officials have vowed to continue fighting and push Russian troops out of their country, but they have also requested an Easter break.
\nMariupol has been surrounded and bombarded by Russian forces since the beginning of the war, leaving a city with a population of over 400,000 people in ruins. On Saturday, a new attempt to evacuate citizens failed, according to a spokesman for Mariupol\u2019s mayor.
\nMoscow\u2019s troops, who withdrew from the area around Kyiv and the north of Ukraine after failing to seize the city, now control much of the eastern Donbas region and the south.
\nMinnekaev stated that their current priority was to \u201cprovide a land corridor to Crimea,\u201d which Russia annexed in 2014, as well as to a breakaway pro-Russian region of Moldova known as Transnistria, where the general claimed Russian-speaking people were \u201cbeing oppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mariupol As expectations for a weekend truce dimmed, Ukraine said it will try again on Saturday to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, the devastated port city mostly controlled by Russian forces. Separately, on Saturday, a Russian strike in Odessa, on the Black Sea, killed at least five people, including a newborn, and injured 18 others, according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257372,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6219,6399,338,456],"class_list":["post-257346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-mariupol","tag-odessa","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"yoast_head":"\n