The move comes almost two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military not to storm the plant but, rather, block it off.
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Russian forces Tuesday began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant over the weekend reached relative safety in Ukrainian-held territory.
How many Ukrainian fighters were holed up inside was unclear, but the Russians put the number at about 2,000 in recent weeks, and 500 were reported to be wounded. A few hundred civilians also remained there, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said. Explosions were also heard in Lviv, in western Ukraine, near the Polish border. Lviv has been a gateway for NATO-supplied weapons. It was not immediately clear what was targeted. Trains coming out of Lviv halted service.
“Over the past days, traveling with the evacuees, I have heard mothers, children and frail grandparents speak about the trauma of living day after day under unrelenting heavy shelling and the fear of death, and with extreme lack of water, food and sanitation,” Lubrani said. “They spoke of the hell they have experienced since this war started, seeking refuge in the Azovstal plant.
“We understood clearly that under these murder weapons, we wouldn’t survive, we wouldn’t manage to go anywhere,” she said.has come to symbolize the human misery inflicted by the war
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