Ukrainian fighters holed up in a steel plant in the last known pocket of resistance inside the shattered city of Mariupol ignored a surrender-or-die ultimatum from the Russians on Sunday and held out against the capture of the strategically vital port.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian fighters holed up in a steel plant in the last known pocket of resistance inside the shattered city of Mariupol ignored a surrender-or-die ultimatum from the Russians on Sunday and held out against the capture of the strategically vital port. The fall of Mariupol, the site of a merciless,7-week-old siege that has reduced much of the city to a smoking ruin, would be Moscow’s 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. As its missiles and rockets slammed into other parts of the country, Russia estimated 2,500 Ukrainian troops and about 400 foreign mercenaries were dug in at the hulking Azovstal steel mill, which covers more than 4 square miles and is laced with tunnels.
