Ukrainian fighters battling Russian forces in the tunnels beneath Mariupol's steel plant refused to surrender in the face of relentless attacks.
LVIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian fighters battling Russian forces in the tunnels beneath Mariupol's immense steel plant refused to surrender in the face of relentless attacks, with the wife of one commander saying they had vowed to"stand till the end."
The Ukrainian military's General Staff said Friday that"the blockade of units of the defense forces in the Azovstal area continues" and that the Russians, with aviation support, had resumed assault operations to take control of the sprawling plant. "Just imagine this hell! And there are children there," he said."More than two months of constant shelling, bombing, constant death."
The Kremlin denied its troops were storming the plant and has demanded the Ukrainians surrender. They have refused. Russia has also accused the fighters of preventing the civilians from leaving. Meanwhile, 10 weeks into the devastating war, Ukraine's military claimed it recaptured some areas in the south and repelled other attacks in the east, further frustrating Putin's ambitions after his abortive attempt to seize Kyiv. Ukrainian and Russian forces are fighting village by village.
On Thursday, an American official said the U.S. shared intelligence with Ukraine about the location of a Russian flagship before the mid-April strike that sank it, one of Moscow's highest-profile failures in the war. Mariupol, which had a prewar population of over 400,000, has come to symbolize the misery inflicted by the war. The siege of the city has trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians with little food, water, medicine or heat.
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