The first group of civilians hiding under a steel mill, which is the last base of Ukrainian forces in the devastated city of Mariupol, managed to get out.
A senior Ukrainian soldier at the Azovstal steel mill said about 20 women and children left when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv, where she pledged continued support for his country’s “fight for freedom”. . Pelosi, whose visit was not announced beforehand, is the most senior US official to have met the Ukrainian president since the war began.
About 1,000 civilians and 2,000 Ukrainian militants are believed to be taking shelter in bunkers and tunnels beneath the Soviet-era Azovstal Steelworks, the only part of the devastated city not taken by Russian forces.
Late Saturday, a senior soldier from the Azov regiment at the steel mill said 20 women and children managed to get out. “We’re pulling civilians out of the rubble with ropes — they’re elderly, women and children,” Sviatoslav Palamar told Reuters. On his Telegram channel, Palamar called for the evacuation of the wounded: “We don’t know why they aren’t being taken away and their evacuation to the Ukrainian-controlled area isn’t being discussed.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that 46 people had left the Azovstal plant, according to the state news agency Ria Novosti.
A bus used to transport evacuees to an emergency shelter in Bezimenne, Ukraine. Photo: Alexander Ermochenko/ReutersReuters reported that about 40 civilians from the steel mill arrived Sunday in Bezimenne, a village about 20 miles (33 km) east of Mariupol in a Russian-backed separatist-controlled area. The group arrived on buses with Ukrainian number plates as part of a convoy containing Russian forces and vehicles bearing UN symbols.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said at a meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday that intensive talks on the evacuation of the Azovstal plant were underway. So far, neither the UN nor the Mariupol authorities have commented on the evacuations or a deal to get people out of the city.
Russian forces have obliterated the once-thriving port city of Mariupol, which was a key Moscow target because of its strategic location near Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
In his Sunday blessing, Pope Francis reiterated his implied criticism of Russia when he said Mariupol was “barbarously bombed and destroyed.” In an address to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the Pope said he suffered and wept “remembering the suffering of the Ukrainian population, especially the weakest, the elderly and children”.
Meanwhile, Zelenskiy on Sunday released footage of an earlier meeting between himself, Pelosi and US House Representatives Jason Crow, Jim McGovern, Gregory Meeks and Adam Schiff. The US spokesman pledged America’s support “until the fight is over.”
“We are visiting you to thank you for your fight for freedom,” she said in video footage posted to Zelenskyi’s Twitter account. “And that your fight is a fight for everyone, and that’s why our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is over.”
At a news conference in Poland on Sunday, Pelosi said the US would stand by its resolve after being asked if Washington was concerned its support would provoke a Russian response. “Let me speak for myself: don’t let bullies bully you,” she said. “When they make threats, you can’t back down.”
Crow, a Democrat, military veteran and member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committee, said he came to Ukraine with three priorities: “guns, guns and guns.”
“The United States of America wants to win and we will stand by Ukraine until victory is achieved,” he said.
Last week, Joe Biden called for a $33 billion (£26 billion) package of military, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine, more than doubling previous US aid. The US President urged Congress to approve the aid immediately, eclipsing Ukraine’s entire defense budget.
As the US ramps up its support for Ukraine, the German chancellor dismissed criticism that Berlin was not doing enough. In an interview with Bild am Sonntag, Olaf Scholz said he made decisions “quickly and together with our partners”.
Ukraine now expects security guarantees from China and other permanent members of the UN Security Council. In an interview with China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency published on Sunday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the proposal for China to issue a security guarantee was “a sign of our respect and trust in the People’s Republic of China”.
On the 67th day of the war, Russia continued its revamped campaign to capture parts of southern and eastern Ukraine after failing to capture Kiev. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday it had attacked an airfield near Odessa and claimed to have destroyed a hangar containing weapons imported from abroad. “High-precision Onyx missiles at a military airfield in the Odessa region destroyed a hangar with weapons and ammunition from the United States and European countries, as well as the runway,” said a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, quoted by Ria Novosti. The report has not been independently verified.
Meanwhile, the Kharkiv governor on Sunday warned residents not to leave the shelters due to “intense shelling.” Oleh Synyehubov asked residents of the city’s northern and eastern districts, especially Saltivka, not to leave their shelters unless it was urgent.
In his nightly video address on Saturday, Zelenskyy urged Russian troops not to fight in Ukraine and said even their generals expected thousands more of them to die.
He accused Moscow of recruiting new soldiers “with little motivation and little combat experience” so that units gutted early in the war can be thrown back into combat. “Any Russian soldier can still save his own life,” said Zelenskyy. “It is better for you to survive in Russia than to die on our land.”
As the first civilians left the Azovstal plant, pictures showed a grim situation for the several thousand who stayed behind.
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Videos and images shared to the Associated Press by two Ukrainian women who said their husbands were among the fighters who refused to surrender at the plant showed unidentified men with stained bandages while others had open wounds or amputated limbs .
At least 600 wounded were treated by a medical skeleton staff, said the women, who identified their husbands as members of the Azov Regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard. Some of the wounds were rotted from gangrene, they said.
In the video, the men said they only ate once a day and shared just 1.5 liters of water a day with four people, and that supplies at the besieged facility were running out.
AP could not independently verify the date and location of the video, which the women said was taken last week in the maze of corridors and bunkers beneath the facility.
The women urged that Ukrainian fighters also be evacuated along with civilians, warning that if captured they could face torture and execution. “The lives of soldiers also count,” Yuliia Fedusiuk told the news agency.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.