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Added on the 23/05/2022 22:48:30 - Copyright : France 24 EN
Aerial images show widespread devastation at the Azovstal iron and steel works in Mariupol - the site of a last stand by Ukrainian soldiers against Russian forces in the city. Ukrainian fighters only surrendered at the end of May, after three months of fierce fighting.
Earlier, the Russian defence ministry said 1,908 Ukrainian soldiers from Azovstal had "rendered themselves prisoner" since Monday.
In an interview on Ukrainian TV, the mayor of the besieged city of Mariupol says that contact was lost with Ukrainian forces holed up in the Azovstal steel plant amid fierce battles with Russian troops.
While the Azovstal factory in the key city of Mariupol fell to Russian forces in mid-May, work continues from another site three hundred kilometres away at the Kametstal plant.
Ukrainian authorities were seeking to extract defenders of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol on Tuesday (May 17), as Russia said hundreds of soldiers who left in an earlier operation had surrendered. Ukraine's defence ministry previously said 264 Ukrainian fighters were evacuated to Russia-controlled territory, including 53 who were "heavily wounded". France 24's Rob Parsons gives his analysis.
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