Ukrainian soldiers were “pushed back” and “surrounded” by the Russian army, the Mariupol brigade said earlier. “All the infantrymen were killed and the firefights are now taking hold of the gunners, anti-aircraft gunners, radio operators, drivers and cooks. Even the orchestra.” Half of the remaining soldiers were wounded. “No one wants to communicate with us anymore because we have been discarded,” the soldiers said. The achievement will mean “death for some of us and prison for the rest.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine has accused Russia of seizing a ship in the port of Mariupol. 18 sailors and the captain’s wife were arrested, Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, wrote to Telegram on Monday. Russian troops had already fired on the ship flying the Liberian flag. In addition to the Ukrainian citizens, an Egyptian was among the prisoners. On Sunday, pro-Russian separatists announced that Ukrainian troops had seized two foreign ships and their crews in Mariupol and were bombing the city from there.
The strategically important port city of Mariupol lies between the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russian breakaway areas in the Donbass. It has been under siege in Ukraine since the early days of the Russian war of aggression. About 440,000 people lived there before the war.