The leader of the self-proclaimed separatist region in Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said he expected his forces to surround the port city of Mariupol on Tuesday, adding in a television interview that the town of Volnovakha – halfway between Mariupol and Donetsk – was almost completely surrounded.
“Our task today is to surround Mariupol,” he said.
Pushilin claims, without offering any evidence, that nationalist elements in Mariupol are terrorizing the civilian population and using it as a human shield. The city has a population of about 400,000 people.
Separately, Deputy People’s Militia Deputy Chief Eduard Basurin said the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), along with Russian forces, would organize humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave Mariupol.
The corridors will be open until Wednesday, he said.
Basurin said several cities in the region have already fallen into the hands of the DNR militia.
Vadim Boychenko, the mayor of Mariupol, said on Ukrainian television that residential areas had been shelled for five days – with heavy artillery, rockets and planes.
“There are many wounded, dead locals, women, children.
“But today the best sons of their homeland on the borders of our city are doing everything not to give Mariupol,” said Boychenko.
“They destroyed important infrastructure, there is no electricity in the city, no heat. We are fighting to [the] the last bullet. “