Ukraine: Mariupol defenders continue to defy Russian order to surrender
Ukrainian soldiers appeared to defy a Russian ultimatum to lay down their arms on Sunday in the pulverised port of Mariupol which Moscow said its forces had almost completely seized in what would be its biggest prize of the nearly two-month war.
Long after a 3am GMT deadline, there was no sign of surrender by Ukrainian fighters holed up in the Azovstal steelworks overlooking the Sea of Azov.
Citing radio intercepts, Russia’s defence ministry said the encircled defenders, including 400 “foreign mercenaries”, had orders to shoot any among them who wanted to give up. There was no word on that from Ukraine’s government.
Having failed to overcome Ukrainian resistance in the north, the Russian military has refocused its ground offensive on the eastern Donbas region while maintaining long-distance strikes elsewhere including the capital, Kyiv.