Ukraine confirms the failure of the Mariupol humanitarian
Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Irina Vereshchuk, confirmed on Wednesday that the humanitarian corridor opened in Mariupol throughout the day has not worked as planned and has blamed Russia for "the lack of control over its own Army".
"Due to the lack of control over their own army, the invaders have not been able to guarantee a proper ceasefire," Vereshchuk said in a statement released through her Facebook profile.
In turn, Vereshchuk has pointed out as part of the failure the "inherent disorganization and negligence" of the Russian authorities, who have also been unable to "provide timely transportation" to move people to the point where "dozens" of Ukrainian-chartered buses and ambulances were waiting.
Vereshchuk has conveyed that this Thursday the attempts to move the population of Mariupol to a safe place will be resumed and has promised them that Ukraine will fight for each of them.
- Women, children, and the elderly
The Ukrainian authorities had announced this Wednesday that a humanitarian corridor would be opened during the day to allow the evacuation of civilians from the city of Mariupol, located in the southeast of the country, the scene of a siege and an offensive by the armed forces for weeks. Russian forces.
Vereshchuk has indicated that a humanitarian corridor had been agreed upon to get women, children, and the elderly out of Mariupol using a convoy that would travel to Zaporizhia, passing through Mangush, Berdiansk, Tokmak, and Orijiv, although he did not rule out changes in the corridor "due to to the very difficult security situation.
Forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic announced on Tuesday the start of an offensive against the Azovstal steelworks after Russia said on Monday that Ukrainian forces were surrounded by the facility.
Russia has repeatedly demanded that the "militants of nationalist battalions" and "foreign mercenaries", including the Azov Battalion - a neo-Nazi armed group integrated into the Ukrainian security forces - surrender.
Russia hands Ukraine an agreement proposal and awaits Kyiv's response: "The ball is in their court"
Russia has delivered to the Ukrainian side a draft document in the peace talks carried out by Moscow and Kyiv and awaits a response from its authorities, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said today.
"To date, we handed over to the Ukrainian side our draft document that includes absolutely clear and developed formulations. The ball is in its court, we are waiting for a response," said the representative of the Russian Presidency.
Peskov did not specify any timeframe for this response, saying only that "it depends on the Ukrainian side."
"But I reiterate once again, and we have said it several times, that the dynamics of the work of the Ukrainian side leaves much to be desired, the Ukrainians do not show a great tendency to intensify the process of talks," he added.
"Bad consequences"
The Kremlin spokesman recalled the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pointed out that Kyiv constantly changes the previously discussed agreements and departs from its own proposals.
"Naturally, this has very bad consequences from the point of view of the effectiveness of the talks," he said.
This same Wednesday, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, María Zajárova, stated in a television appearance that Russia “has not trusted these people for a long time,” referring to the Ukrainian negotiating team.
"On the part of the office of the person who calls himself the president of Ukraine and has the corresponding powers, we heard the request to start talks, and Russia did not reject this request," she recalled.
"A Circus"
However, he noted, "from there began, as always, a circus in a figurative and direct sense on the part of the Kyiv regime: that they come, that they do not come, that they participate, that they do not participate... Were we ready for that? in Moscow? Of course, yes," he said.
Zakharova pointed out that in recent years this has been Kyiv's approach to the talks, and she recalled the non-compliance with the Minsk agreements.
"It is a classic scheme, which allows us to ensure that it is not an independent regime and that it is controlled from the outside. And second, the talks are a diversionary maneuver," she added.
The desperate cry of the 'numantinos' from the Mariúpol steel mill: "We have hours left, they outnumber us ten to one"
The last Ukrainian soldiers of Mariúpol resist in the Azovstal in what they say is their last battle. This is a battalion of marines who, against all odds, have defended the port city during almost two months of Russian siege.
Serhiy Volyna, one of the Ukrainian fighters, says in a video that he doesn't know how much time they have left, but he uses that appeal so that his speech reaches the farthest corner of the world.
"This is our appeal to the world, and it could be the last of our lives," he begins. "We are likely facing our last days, if not hours. The enemy outnumbers us, 10 to 1," he assumes stoically.
"pull" procedure
The soldier highlights the technical reasons why Russia is so superior, at this moment, in Mariupol: "They have an advantage in the air, in artillery, in their ground forces, in equipment, and in tanks," says Volyn, while remarking that only they are "defending an objective, the Azovstal, where in addition to military personnel, there are also civilians who have been victims of this war."
"We make an appeal," he continues, "and we ask all world leaders to help us." They ask for something very specific: an "extraction" procedure.
"May they take us to the territory of a third state. All of us, the military battalion of Mariupol soldiers, more than 500 wounded and hundreds of civilians, including women and children, beg to be taken to a safe place in the territory of a third status," he pleads. "Thank you," the video ends.
The Azovstal metallurgy: the last Ukrainian stronghold where a thousand civilians and a group of soldiers take refuge in Mariupol
- The steel mills have good bomb shelters, that's why Mariupol civilians went there.
Russia gives an ultimatum to the Russian forces stationed at the Azovstal metallurgical plant.
On the 56th day of the war in Ukraine, all eyes are on the Azovstal steel factory. It is the metallurgy inside which the last group of Ukrainian soldiers is holding out in the besieged southern city of Mariupol. In addition, its basements serve as a refuge for a thousand civilians who have suffered heavy Russian bombardment. All eyes are on the Azovstal plant on Wednesday as Russia has issued a second ultimatum to Ukrainian troops demanding their immediate surrender.
Azovstal is a steel and metallurgy that was established in 1930 in Mariupol and started steel production in 1935, with the commissioning of the first tilting furnace in the USSR. During World War II, operations were forced to stop in 1941 when Nazi Germany occupied Mariupol. In September 1943, after the liberation of the city, the plant was rebuilt.
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Azovstal has been a priority target for Putin's troops. Already in March, the bombings began in this industrial zone of Mariúpol, which from the beginning has also served as a refuge for civilians, almost all industrial workers and their families, as well as a military installation, in which it has established its base camp, for example, the Azov Battalion.
The Azov Battalion originated from the Patriots of Ukraine, a far-right organization created in 2005 by Andriy Biletsky, which includes members of far-right and neo-Nazi nationalist groups.
Refugee civilians in the basement
The deputy mayor of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Sergei Orlov, warned this Wednesday, April 20, that there are "many" civilian refugees in the Azovstal steel mill and has denied that they can leave the building, despite claims from Russia to evacuate instead through humanitarian corridors.
"I can confirm that there are many civilians," Orlov told British television BBC. "Mainly they are citizens of nearby destroyed buildings and many metallurgical plant workers," he detailed.
In this sense, he has stated that "they know that the steel mills have good bomb shelters and some have accumulated water and food in that place." "That is why they decided to live there with their families," he pointed out, before denouncing the situation in which they find themselves in the face of the offensive by Russian forces.
"They lack absolutely everything. They lack water, food, medicine, and aid. Russia blocks absolutely everything, any humanitarian aid or evacuation," he said. In this way, he has stressed that "all the news about the possibility of leaving, of leaving Mariupol or the Azovstal steel mill, are false."
A second ultimatum from Russia
Hours earlier, the head of Russia's National Defense Control Center, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, again offered the Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms and withdraw from Azovstal to evacuate civilians from the area, while assuring that the measure was guided "by purely human principles."
In this regard, Mizintsev noted that Moscow "again offers militant nationalist and foreign mercenary battalions starting at 2:00 p.m. (Moscow local time) on April 20, 2022, the cessation of hostilities and the laying down of arms," according to the Russian agency TASS.
Forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic announced on Tuesday the start of an offensive against this steel mill after Russia after the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that Ukrainian forces are surrounded in Azovstal.
Subsequently, the Russian authorities indicated that a total of 120 people had left the steelworks through three humanitarian corridors established by the Russian forces, as reported by the Interfax news agency, although this has been denied by the Ukrainian authorities. And they accuse Ukraine of using civilians as a human shield for the last battalion of the resistance
This Wednesday, Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, announced on Telegram that a humanitarian corridor had been agreed to evacuate women, children, and the elderly from the besieged city, "given the catastrophic humanitarian situation." These corridors might not affect the steelworks, from where the Russians have just announced, however, the departure and surrender of half a dozen Ukrainian soldiers. And where the battalion that resists already announces that it has days or perhaps hours left.
