Ukrainian Officials Say Russian Firing Hampers Rescue Of Mariupol Civilians

Ukrainian officials accused Russia of violating a ceasefire on Friday aimed at evacuating scores of civilians trapped in a bombed-out steelworks in the city of Mariupol, but a Russian report said 12 civilians, including children, had got out.

Mariupol has endured the most destructive siege of the 10-week-old war, and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant is the last part of the city, a strategic southern port on the Azov Sea, still in the hands of Ukrainian fighters.

U.N.-brokered evacuations of some of the hundreds of civilians who had taken shelter in the plant's network of tunnels and bunkers began last weekend, but were halted in recent days by renewed fighting.

The head of Ukraine's presidential staff, Andriy Yermak, said the next stage of the rescue was under way on Friday, but Mariupol authorities said Russian forces had fired at a car that was involved, killing one Ukrainian fighter and wounding six.

Russia had no immediate comment, but a report on Russia's RIA news agency said its correspondent had seen a bus with 12 civilians leave the Azovstal complex. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Mariupol's mayor earlier estimated that 200 civilians were trapped at the plant with little food or water.

Andriy Biletsky, a founder of the Azov Regiment holed up in the steelworks, said it was under attack and called on the United Nations and world leaders to help rescue everyone there.

"The fighting is continuing, the shelling does not stop," he wrote in an online post. "Every minute of procrastination is the life of civilians, soldiers and the wounded."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the blockade of Mariupol as torture and said if Russia killed civilians or troops who could otherwise be released, his government could no longer hold peace talks with Moscow.

The two sides remain far apart on the main issues, but there have been compromises: Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had handed over 41 people, 28 of them soldiers, in a new prisoner exchange.

GLOBAL HUNGER

The port, which lies between the Crimea Peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014 and parts of eastern Ukraine taken by Russia-backed separatists the same year, is key to linking up the two Russian-held territories and blocking key Ukrainian exports.

A senior U.N. official said nearly 25 million tonnes of grain, needed to prevent prices spiralling and causing hunger around the world, were stuck in Ukraine.

"It's an almost grotesque situation," Josef Schmidhuber, Deputy Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization's Markets and Trade Division said in Geneva.

Ukraine's general staff said Russian forces were continuing to try to take over the rest of eastern Ukraine, where Russia's defence ministry said it had destroyed an ammunition depot in Kramatorsk and shot down two Ukrainian warplanes.

Ukraine said it had captured 11 Russian snipers in the region around its second city, Kharkiv.

It was not possible to independently verify either side's statements about battlefield events.

Moscow calls its actions a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and rid it of anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West. Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war. More than 5 million Ukrainians have fled abroad since the start of the invasion.

'VICTORY DAY IN MARIUPOL'

In Mariupol, Ukraine's general staff said on Friday morning Russia had resumed its efforts to overrun the Azovstal plant.

A member of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic forces fighting alongside the Russian army in eastern Ukraine told Reuters he thought Ukrainian forces had little strength left to defend Azovstal.

"It won't last long," said the fighter who gave his name as Alexei, speaking on Thursday near the plant. He did not provide evidence for his statement.

Russian President Valdimir Putin declared victory in Mariupol on April 21 and ordered his forces to seal off the plant while calling for Ukrainian forces inside to disarm.

The Kremlin denies Ukrainian allegations that Russian troops stormed Azovstal to pave the way for a wider victory announcement when Russia commemorates the end of World War Two on Sunday and said humanitarian corridors were in place.

Asked about plans to mark the day in Russian-held parts of Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: "The time will come to mark Victory Day in Mariupol."

STUBBORN DEFENCE

The Ukrainian defence of Azovstal has underlined Russia's failure to take major cities in a war that has united Western powers in arming Kyiv.

Ukraine and its western allies say that after failing to seize Kyiv, Russian forces have made slow progress in their revised aim of capturing the east and south of the country but bombardments have affected more and more civilians.

The Kremlin says it targets only military or strategic sites and not civilians. Ukraine daily reports civilian casualties from Russian shelling and fighting, and accuses Russia of war crimes. Russia denies the allegations.

The most severe sanctions ever imposed on a major power have impaired Russia's $1.8 trillion economy and billions of dollars worth of military aid has helped Ukraine frustrate the invasion.

The European Union's proposed new sanctions package, which includes an oil embargo, has run into opposition from some member states, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban likening that to an "atomic bomb" dropped on the economy.

The European Commission has proposed giving Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic more time to adapt to the embargo, three EU sources told Reuters.