Ukraine’s Azovstal plant is under fire again as the Russians resume the shelling of the plant sheltering soldiers and civilians. After a rare silence that allowed humanitarian corridors to evacuate about 100 people, then the firing continued.
“The occupiers began firing on Azovstal again as soon as the evacuation of some Ukrainians was completed,” according to the commander of the 12th brigade of the National Guard Denis Schlega.
According to him, they were using all sorts of weapons to defend themselves.
It’s unclear whether the increased bombardment will put the next stage of the Azovstal evacuation, scheduled for Monday, in jeopardy. Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians are said to be still trapped in the plant’s debris.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said “hundreds of civilians remain blocked in Azovstal together with the defenders of Mariupol. The situation has become a sign of a real humanitarian catastrophe because people are running out of water, food, and medicine,” she said.
The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said in an interview on Italian television Sunday the “Kyiv authorities are trying by all means to achieve the withdrawal of the Ukrainian radicals remaining in Azovstal, since among them there may be Western officers and mercenaries.”
There’s been no firm evidence western nationals are among the fighters at Azovstal.
“The situation with the confrontation at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol and the stubborn, even hysterical desire of [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, his team, and his Western patrons to achieve the withdrawal of all these people and send them to the territory of Ukraine is explained by the fact that there are many characters who will confirm the presence of mercenaries and, perhaps, active officers of the Western armies on the side of the Ukrainian radicals,” Lavrov said.