The battered port city of Mariupol appeared on the brink of falling to Russian forces Sunday after seven weeks under siege, a development that what would give Moscow a crucial success in Ukraine following a botched attempt to storm the capital and the loss of the Russian navy's Black Sea flagship.
The Russian military estimated that about 2,500 Ukrainian fighters holding out at a hulking steel plant with a warren of underground passageways provided the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol.
Moscow set a midday deadline for their surrender, saying those who laid down their arms were "guaranteed to keep their lives." But the defenders did not submit, just as they rejected previous ultimatums.
"We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war," Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed on ABC's . He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible "but we do not have intention to surrender."
The relentless bombardment and street fighting in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, by the Ukrainians' estimate. A maternity hospital was hit by a lethal Russian airstrike in the opening weeks of the war, and about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians were taking shelter.
An estimated 100,000 remained in the city out of a pre-war population of 450,000, trapped without food, water, heat or electricity in a siege that has made Mariupol the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war.
"All those who will continue resistance will be destroyed," Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defence Ministry's spokesperson, said in announcing the latest ultimatum.
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He said inxjmtzywtercepted communications indicated there were about 400 foreign mercenaries along with the Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal steel mill, a claim that could not be independently verified.
Tunnels at the sprawling Azovstal steel mill, which covers an area of more than 11 square kilometres, have allowed the defenders to hide and resist.
'Shield defending Ukraine'
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar described Mariupol as a "shield defending Ukraine" as Russian troops prepare for the battle in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already control some territory.
Capturing the city would be Russia's biggest victory after two months of costly fighting and would allow Russia to secure a land corridor from the Donbas to the Crimean Peninsula — which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014 — and deprive Ukraine of a major port and its prized industrial assets.
Mariupol's seizure also would make more troops available for the offensive in the east, which, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a vital piece of the country and a badly needed victory that he could sell to the Russian people amid the worsening economic situation from Western sanctions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the fall of Mariupol could scuttle any attempt at a negotiated peace.
"The destruction of all our guys in Mariupol — what they are doing now — can put an end to any format of negotiations," Zelensky said in an interview with Ukrainian journalists.
In his nightly address to the nation, Zelensky called on the West to send more heavy weapons immediately if there is any chance of saving the city, adding Russia is "deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there."
Russia strikes Kyiv and eastern cities
In a reminder that no part of Ukraine was immune until the war ends, Russian forces carried out new missile strikes Sunday near Kyiv and elsewhere in an apparent effort to weaken Ukraine's military capacity before the anticipated assault in the east, as part of an invasion now in its eighth week.
After the humiliating loss of the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet last week to what the Ukrainians boasted was a missile attack, Russia's military vowed Friday to step up strikes on the capital.
The Kremlin said Sunday that it had attacked an ammunition plant near Kyiv overnight with precision-guided missiles, the third such strike in as many days.
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Russia also claimed to have destroyed Ukrainian air defence radar equipment in the east, near Sievierodonetsk, as well as several ammunition depots elsewhere.
Explosions were reported overnight in Kramatorsk, the eastern city where rockets earlier this month killed at least 57 people at a train station crowded with civilians trying to evacuate ahead of the Russian offensive.
A regional official in eastern Ukraine said at least two people were killed when Russian forces fired at residential buildings in the town of Zolote, near the front line in the Donbas.
Bombardment in Kharkiv
Like Mariupol, the northeastern city of Kharkiv has been a target of attacks since the early days of the invasion and has seen conditions deteriorate ahead of the eastern offensive.
At least five people were killed and 13 wounded in Russian shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, on Sunday, regional officials said.
The barrage slammed into apartment buildings and left the streets scattered with broken glass and other debris, including part of at least one rocket. Firefighters and residents scrambled to douse flames in several apartments.
