Mariupol evacuations resume after Ukraine accuses Russia of violating ceasefire

Ukraine said just 50 civilians wereevacuated from a bombed-out steelworks in the city of Mariupolon Friday, accusing Russia of violating a truce intended toallow all those trapped beneath the plant to depart after weeksunder siege.

Mariupol has endured the most destructive bombardment of the10-week-old war, and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant isthe last part of the city, a strategic southern port on the AzovSea, still in the hands of Ukrainian fighters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late-night videoaddress that Ukraine was working on a diplomatic effort to savedefenders barricaded inside the steelworks. "Influentialintermediaries are involved, influential states," he said, butprovided no further details.

Zelenskypreviously described Russia's blockade of Mariupol as torture and said if Russia killedcivilians or troops who could otherwise be released, hisgovernment could no longer hold peace talks with Moscow.

UN-brokered evacuationof some of the hundreds ofcivilians who had taken shelter in the plant's network oftunnels and bunkers began last weekend before being halted byrenewed fighting.

On Friday afternoon, 50 women, children and elderly peoplewere evacuated from the plant, Ukrainian Deputy Prime MinisterIryna Vereshchuk said, adding that the operation would continueon Saturday. The Russian side constantly violated a localceasefire, she said, making the evacuation veryslow.

Russia confirmed the number of evacuees and plan to continueevacuations on Saturday but did not comment on her accusation.

The city's mayor has estimated 200 people remained trappedat the plant with little food or water.

In a video from the plant posted online late on Thursday, anAzov regiment medic who gave his name as Hasan described peopledying from wounds and starvation.

Authorities in Mariupol earlier accused Russian forces on Friday of violating theceasefire at the steelworks by firing at a car involved in evacuation efforts, killing one Ukrainian fighter and wounding six.

Russia did not immediately comment on the city council's online statement.It hadpreviously said humanitarian corridorswere in place.

Some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters, by Russia's most recent estimate, are also holed up in a vast maze of tunnels and bunkers beneath the Azovstal steelworks and they have repeatedly refused to surrender.

Civilians travel for days to flee'hellscapes'

UNSecretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the organization "must continue to do all we can to get people out of these hellscapes."

People escaping Mariupol typically have to pass through contested areas and many checkpoints sometimes taking days to reach relative safety in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 230 kilometresto the northwest.

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The fight in the last Ukrainian stronghold of a city reduced to ruins by the Russian onslaught appeared increasingly desperate amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to finish the battle for Mariupol so he can present a triumph to the Russian people in time for Monday's Victory Day, which marks the Soviet Union's triumph over Nazi Germanyand is the biggest patriotic holiday on the Russian calendar.

Ahead of Victory Day, municipal workers and volunteers cleaned up what remains of Mariupol, a city that is now under Russia's control apart from the steel plant.

Bulldozers scooped up debris and people swept streets against a backdrop of buildings hollowed out by shelling. Workers repaired a model of a warship, and Russian flags were hoisted on utility poles.

Russia struggles to make gains in Donbas

The fall of Mariupol would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to fight elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial region that the Kremlin says is now its chief objective.

Its capture also holds symbolic value since the city has been the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war and a surprisingly fierce resistance.

Ukraine's general staff said Russian forces were continuingto try to take over the rest of eastern Ukraine, where Russia'sdefence ministry said it had destroyed an ammunition depot inKramatorsk and shot down two Ukrainian warplanes.

But Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovychsaid in a video briefing that Ukrainianforces had made some advances near Kharkiv and Kherson and hadinflicted "significant losses" on the Russians while alsosuffering losses of their own.

It was not possible to independently verify either side'sstatements about battlefield events.

WATCH |New operation underway to get civilians out of Mariupol steel plant:

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces are making only "plodding" progress in the Donbas.

In fact, the extended standoff at the plant in Mariupol was helping to hinder Russia's plans for the Donbas, the British Defence Ministry said in an assessment on Friday.

The fighting at the plant "has come at personnel, equipment and munitions cost to Russia," it said. "Whilst Ukrainian resistance continues in Azovstal, Russian losses will continue to build and frustrate their operational plans in southern Donbas."

Moscow calls its actions a "special military operation" todisarm Ukraine and rid it of anti-Russian nationalism fomentedby the West. Ukraine and the West say Russia launched anunprovoked war. More than fivemillion Ukrainians have fled abroadsince the start of the invasion.

U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders plan tohold a video call with Zelensky on Sunday, the White Housesaid, in a show of unity before Russia marks Victory Day.Biden announced a package of security assistance to Ukrainethat will provide additional artillery munitions, radars andother equipment. A U.S. official separately said it was worth$150 million US.

In another statement, the White House said Biden held acall withCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday in which theyunderscored their commitment to holding Russia accountable for its actions. They also discussed efforts to provide security assistance to Ukraine.

The Italian government, meanwhile, ordered the seizure of ayacht worth some $700 million US that has been linked in the mediato Putin.

The UNSecurity Council which includes Russia also expressed"deep concern" over the situation in Ukraine on Friday, its firststatement since the Feb. 24 invasion.

Ukraine says electrician helped Russians access steel mill

The Russians have pulverized much of Mariupol, which had a prewar population of over 400,000, and a two-month siege has trapped perhaps 100,000 civilians with little food, water, electricity or heat.

Civilians sheltering inside the plant have perhaps suffered even more hunkering underground without seeing daylight in months.