KYIV : The shattered port city of Mariupol appeared on the brink of falling to the Russians on Sunday in what would give Moscow its biggest victory of the war yet and free up troops to take part in a potentially climactic battle for control of Ukraine’s industrial east.
Russia estimated 2,500 Ukrainian fighters were holding out at a hulking steel plant in the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, much of which has been reduced to a smoking ruin during a merciless seven-week siege.
Moscow gave the city’s defenders a surrender-or-die ultimatum with a midday deadline, saying those who laid down their arms were “guaranteed to keep their lives.” But the fighters ignored it, just as they rejected previous ultimatums.
“We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed on ABC’s “This Week.” He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we do not have intention to surrender.”
APN
