The Ukrainian president said Saturday evening that the situation in the strategic port of Mariupol is “inhumane”, calling on the West to “immediately” provide heavy weapons that it has been asking for several weeks, while Russia claims that it controls almost all the ships. The city issues a new call to its last defenders to lay down their weapons.
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“The situation in Mariupol remains as dangerous as possible. This is what the Russian Federation deliberately did. (…) Russia is deliberately trying to destroy anyone in Mariupol, in the southeast of Ukraine.
According to him, there are only “two options”: “either the partners will provide Ukraine with all the necessary heavy weapons, aircraft, and, without any exaggeration, immediately” in order to “reduce pressure on Mariupol and lift the blockade”. A city that had a population of 441,000 people before the invasion on February 24.
“Either – the path of negotiations, where the role of partners must also be decisive,” the Ukrainian president continued, saying that the search for a “military or diplomatic” solution had been a “daily” activity from the start. But the blockade proved to be “extremely difficult”.
Statements were published when the Russian Defense Ministry asked Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Azovstal mineral complex to stop fighting on Sunday at 6 am Moscow time (0300 GMT), and evacuate the building before 1300 (1000 GMT).
The ministry confirmed on Telegram that “all those who gave up their weapons will ensure that their lives are saved.” “It’s their only chance.”
Apart from this pocket of resistance, he said, “the entire territory of the city of Mariupol was cleared of militants from the Nazi Azov formation, foreign mercenaries and Ukrainian soldiers.”
They have left their country in the last 24 hours.
