A video of a Russian naval infantryman being shot at Mariupol is breaking the internet.
“Graphic video that shows a Russian naval infantryman shot while running to a building in Mariupol, severing an artery. A BTR-82 arrives at the end to help with the evacuation. According to the Russian source, the serviceman did not survive,” tweeted Rob Lee.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said all women, children, and the elderly have been brought out from underground bunkers in the vast steel mill, where they had hidden from Russian attacks with little food, water, or medicine.
“This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation is over,” Vereshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The steel mill, the final pocket of Ukrainians fighting in the devastated port city, has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine in the 10-week-old war. Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters are thought to remain inside.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a late-night address, said more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the plant and pledged to continue the “extremely difficult but essential efforts” to evacuate the trapped fighters.
“We took all civilians out of the Azovstal plant and are now preparing for the second stage of the evacuation mission to evacuate those who are wounded and medics,” he said. “Of course, we are working on evacuating our military, all the heroes who are defending Mariupol.”
Weeks of Russian bombardment have left Mariupol in ruins, while the steel mill has been largely destroyed. During pauses in the fighting, evacuations of civilians began last weekend, brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Russian forces, backed by tanks and artillery, tried again on Saturday to storm Azovstal, seeking to dislodge the last Ukrainian defenders, according to Ukraine’s military command.
