MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — A video released Saturday by Ukrainian forces at their last stronghold in the Azovstal steel plant in the southern port of Mariupol appears to show a large number of civilians living in cramped conditions in an underground bunker, the majority appearing to be women and children.
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The video, if confirmed, would be the most extensive footage to date of life in the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, where an unspecified number of Ukrainian civilians and fighters — members of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade and the Azov Regiment — are said to be holding out against a much larger and better-equipped Russian force. The video could not be independently verified.
In the video, members of the Azov Regiment are shown descending a flight of stairs — past graffiti on the walls in large letters in Russian saying “children” — to deliver food to civilians in an underground basement with a steel door.
A large group of women and children gathers to receive the delivery. None are identified. The shelter appears to be home to a few dozen people, tightly crowded and with their belongings suspended on lines above their beds to maximize the use of the space.
Some civilians say they want to be evacuated to Ukrainian-controlled territory and demand a halt to all fighting. They also say they are running out of food. Some say they have been there since the end of February or the beginning of March, having moved to the plant because it seemed at that time to be a refuge from the shelling.
One girl says she and other children have been playing a game on their phone.
“We’d keep playing on the phone, but we want to go home,” another girl adds. “We want to see the sun.”
A woman says she needs a guarantee that her children will be safe if they try to leave.
“Please, get us out of here,” she says. “We want to see a peaceful sky, we want to breathe fresh air. You can’t even imagine what it means to us to eat, to drink sweet tea — it’s already happiness for us.”
A man adds, “We won’t last long this way.”
Ukrainian commanders, speaking previously to The Washington Post over a satellite connection, said that beneath the plant is a system of underground tunnels and rooms similar to the one shown in the video, where they find refuge from the shelling. It is not clear how many civilian shelters exist beneath the factory complex.
The commanders say there are “hundreds” of civilians. Ukrainian government officials have said there could be as many as 1,000.
The Azov Regiment’s deputy commander, Sviatoslav Palamar, told the Associated Press that the video was recorded Thursday.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Saturday that Russian forces resumed airstrikes and planned to storm the complex to “suppress the last resistance” in Mariupol.
Russia has said the Ukrainians can leave the plant if they lay down their arms. The Ukrainian soldiers have refused, saying they do not trust the Russian forces and have insisted on an evacuation and guarantee of safety by a third country.
The Azov Regiment is a nationalist group that is part of Ukraine’s National Guard and has been a key component of Ukraine’s defense of Mariupol. In the past, the group has previously been connected to the extreme right, but during Ukraine’s war against Russia, it has become a magnet for fighters from a wide array of backgrounds and political persuasions, or with no political affiliations.
Source: WP
