About 100 Ukrainians were evacuated from a dilapidated steel plant in the city of Mariupol on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after the United Nations confirmed that a “safe passage operation” was under way there. Mariupol, a strategic port city in the Sea of Azov, has suffered the most devastating siege of the war, with Pope Francis, in a tacit criticism of Russia, telling thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that it had been “bombed barbarically.” . “Thank you to our team! “Now, together with the United Nations, they are working to evacuate other civilians from the factory,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter. The evacuees will arrive in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhia on Monday, he said. As fighting spread across a wide front in southern and eastern Ukraine, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to continue US support for Ukraine when she met with Zelensky during an unannounced visit to Kyiv. Russia, meanwhile, has said it has destroyed a stockpile of weapons supplied by the West at an airport near Odessa in southern Ukraine. Moscow has turned its attention to southern and eastern Ukraine after failing to occupy Kyiv in the first weeks of a war that razed cities, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 5 million to flee the country. In Mariupol, Russia declared victory on April 21, as hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians took refuge in the Azovstal steelworks, a huge Soviet-era complex with a network of warehouses and tunnels trapped with little food. water or medicine. Negotiations for the evacuation of civilians have been stalled several times in recent weeks, with Russia and Ukraine blaming each other. But on Sunday, more than 50 people arrived at a makeshift shelter after fleeing Mariupol, a Reuters photographer said. The civilians arrived by bus in the Russian-controlled village of Bezimenne, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Mariupol, where a series of blue tents had been set up, accompanied by UN and Russian military vehicles. A spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said a “safe passage operation” had been launched on Saturday and was being co-ordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross, Russia and Ukraine. He said no further details could be made public so as not to endanger the safety of the evacuees and the escort. A photo of a pamphlet released by the Presidential Press Service of Ukraine on May 1, 2022 shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presenting the Order of Princess Olga to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on the occasion of her “significant personal Ukrainian-American transnational cooperation and support for a sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine “during their meeting in Kiev.STRINGER / AFP / Getty Images Footage posted by Zelenski on Twitter on Sunday showed him, accompanied by an armed escort and dressed in military uniform, greeting a US congressional delegation led by Pelosi outside his presidential office the previous day. “Our delegation traveled to Kyiv to send an unequivocal and resounding message to the world: America stands firmly by Ukraine,” said Pelosi, a senior US official who visited Ukraine after the Russian invasion. on February 24th. Moscow calls its actions a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of Western-instigated anti-Russian nationalism. Ukraine and the West say Russia has launched an unprovoked offensive war. Western countries have imposed heavy economic sanctions on Russia and are sending increasing quantities of weapons to help Ukraine defend itself. The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that it had carried out a missile attack on a military airport near the port of Odessa, destroying a runway and a hangar containing weapons and ammunition supplied to Ukraine by the United States and European countries. On Saturday, Ukraine said Russian missiles had hit a newly constructed runway at Odessa Central Airport. It was not clear if the same incident was reported and Reuters could not immediately verify the reports. To the east, Moscow is pushing for full control of the Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists already controlled parts of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces before the invasion. On Sunday, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Synehubov, warned residents north and east of the city of Kharkiv to remain in their shelters due to heavy Russian bombing. Reuters could not immediately verify reports of bombings in the area. Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk region, in a post on social media, urged people to stay away as much as possible. Russia’s Defense Ministry has accused Ukrainian forces of bombing a school, a kindergarten and a cemetery in villages in the occupied southern region of Kherson, Russia’s RIA news agency reported on Sunday. The ministry said civilians were killed and wounded, but gave no further details. There was no immediate response from Ukraine and Reuters could not independently verify the report. Russian forces occupied the town of Kherson, 100 km (60 miles) north of Russian-annexed Crimea, in March. The Ukrainian army said in a statement on Sunday that Russian forces were fighting to push north from Kherson to the towns of Mykolayiv and Kryvyi Rih. Our Morning and Afternoon Newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
