Civilians evacuated from Azovstal plant in Mariupol

The BBC reports that both Ukraine and Russia have announced that all elderly people, women, and children have been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

The operation began a week ago, co-ordinated by the UN and Red Cross, but neither of the organisations has confirmed the evacuation, the BBC says. 

Ukrainian forces are holding out at the heavily bombed plant, the only part of the city not under Russian control.

Russia has bombarded the plant for weeks, demanding the surrender of its defenders from the Azov battalion.

The Associated Press says Russian forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa and bombarded a besieged Azovstal, hoping to complete their conquest of the port in time for Victory Day celebrations. 

However, in a sign of the unexpectedly effective defence that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine's military flattened Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war's first days and has become a symbol of resistance. Western military analysts also said a Ukrainian counteroffensive was advancing around the nation's second-largest city, Kharkiv, even as it remained a key target of Russian shelling.

Conflicting reports on numbers evacuated

The BBC says the whereabouts of the evacuees of Azovstal are not yet clear, but Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said this part of the humanitarian operation was now complete. In the past, it has taken days for those evacuated to reach Ukrainian-held territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the plant, although the Russian defence ministry gave a much lower number, saying 51 people had been evacuated over a period of three days.

The largest European conflict since World War II, the Russia-Ukraine combat has developed into a punishing war of attrition that has killed thousands of people, forced millions to flee their homes, and destroyed large swaths of some cities, AP writes. Ukrainian leaders warned that attacks would only worsen in the lead-up to Victory Day on Monday- Russia's holiday commemorating Nazi Germany's defeat 77 years ago. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged people to heed air raid warnings.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that Zelenskyy and his people “embody the spirit of those who prevailed during the Second World War.” He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying “to twist history to attempt to justify his unprovoked and brutal war against Ukraine.”

“As war again rages in Europe, we must increase our resolve to resist those who now seek to manipulate historical memory in order to advance their own ambitions,” Blinken said in a statement as the United States and the United Kingdom marked the Allied victory in Europe.

The most intense fighting in recent days has been in eastern Ukraine, where the two sides are entrenched in a fierce battle to capture or reclaim territory. Moscow's offensive there has focused on the industrial Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting since 2014 and occupy some areas.

Moscow also has sought to sweep across southern Ukraine to both cut off the country from the sea and connect its territory to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, long home to Russian troops. But it has struggled to achieve those objectives.

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