Russian forces fired rockets into the besieged steelworks in Mariupol, Ukraine, and smoke darkened the sky above the complex, where officials say 200 civilians are still trapped despite evacuations as the European Union prepares to sanction Russian oil.
Reuters footage showed bursts of rockets fired from a Russian truck-mounted launcher on the outskirts of the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol.
The attack followed a United Nations-brokered ceasefire around the Soviet-era steelworks complex that allowed several groups of civilians to escape in the last days of the last stronghold of Ukrainian fighters in the southern port city.
More civilians were trapped in bunkers and tunnels beneath the complex and about 100,000 remained in the rest of the city, Mayor Vadym Boychenko said on Tuesday.
“You wake up in the morning and cry. You cry at night. I don’t know where to go,” said Tatyana Bushlanova, a resident of Mariupol, sitting next to a blackened apartment block and talking amid the sound of bombs exploding nearby.
Mariupol is one of Russia’s top targets as it seeks to separate Ukraine from the Black Sea and connect Russian-held territory in the south and east.
Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, focused on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, has killed at least three civilians in the city of Vuhledar, the Ukrainian president’s office said. Ukraine’s military said Russian forces were trying to take the town of Rubizhne, on the front lines.
Russian bombing since troops invaded Ukraine on February 24 has razed cities, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 5 million to flee the country.
The war has shifted to eastern provinces, parts of which were already under the control of Russian-backed separatists before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion, after Russia abandoned an attack on Kiev in late March.
Its troops are trying to encircle a large Ukrainian force there, attacking from three directions with heavy shelling along the front in what Moscow says is a special military operation to fight nationalists it calls the Nazis.
In response, Ukraine’s western allies have increased their supply of ever-heavier weapons. Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has urged the West to maintain its support.
“Ukraine needs weapons so that Ukrainian refugees can return home and rebuild the economy. So we ask you not to stop, to speed up the pace of the supply of heavy weapons,” she told British television.
She said she had not seen President Volodymyr Zelensky since the invasion began.
sanctions
In Brussels, the European Commission is expected to finalize a sixth package of European Union sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, including a possible embargo on Russian oil purchases.
In a major shift, Germany said it was prepared to support an immediate EU embargo on Russian oil.
The European Commission may spare Hungary and Slovakia from the embargo because of the two countries’ dependence on Russian oil, two EU officials said on Monday.
Source: CNN Brasil
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