An operation has been planned to evacuate perhaps as many as 1,000 civilians holed up with Ukrainian soldiers underneath a steel plant in Mariupol.
The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the planned operation on Friday but did not reveal any details about how the evacuations from the Azovstal steel plant would be accomplished. The news comes a day after United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Zelensky in Kyiv and three days after the U.N. chief met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“An operation is planned today to get civilians out of the plant,” Zelensky’s office said, according to Reuters.
The head of the U.N. said on Thursday that his meeting with Putin resulted in an agreement “in principle” to evacuate Ukrainian civilians at the Azovstal plant.
FORMER US MARINE KILLED FIGHTING FOR UKRAINE
“We are depending on the goodwill of all parties, and we are in this together,” U.N. Crisis Coordinator Amin Awad told Reuters on Friday.
The Azovstal steel plant has been battered by Russian bombs and artillery, and it is sheltering at least 1,000 civilians, as well as the remaining Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol, according to Ukrainian officials.
Russia declared victory in Mariupol last week, and in a televised meeting with his defense minister, Putin called off a planned storming of the facility, opting to blockade it instead.
The Ukrainian president said on Thursday that Russia’s shelling of Mariupol has not stopped, continuing even as Guterres was negotiating with Putin in Moscow.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Nearly 2,800 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, with another 3,152 injured, according to the U.N.
