An AP report from David Keyton and Yesica Fisch is that Russian troops are now trying to storm the Aztoval Factory complex — after saying they were going to simply keep them bottled up.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces in Ukraine tried to storm a steel plant housing soldiers and civilians in the southern city of Mariupol on Saturday while attempting to crush the last corner of resistance in a location of high symbolic and strategic value to Moscow, Ukrainian officials said.
The reported assault on the eve of Orthodox Easter came after the Kremlin claimed its military had seized all of Mariupol except for the Azovstal plant and as Russia's military pounded other cities and towns in southern and eastern Ukraine. Officials reported that Russia fired at least six cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa, killing five people.
The fate of the Ukrainians holed up in the sprawling seaside steel mill wasn’t immediately clear; earlier Saturday, a Ukrainian military unit released a video reportedly taken two days earlier in which women and children holed up underground, some for as long as two months, said they longed to see the sun.
...Russia still has not established air or sea control due to Ukrainian resistance, and despite Putin’s declaration of victory in Mariupol, “heavy fighting continues to take place, frustrating Russian attempts to capture the city, thus further slowing their desired progress in the Donbas,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said.
Much more at the link.
This is obviously a developing story. As Kos keeps reminding us, the Fog of War means everything should be taken with a large grain of salt. Still, that Russian troops would launch an assault against a hard target like the factory complex is all too plausible. If Ukraine can find a way to get supplies to the defenders, they are in a strong position to hold out and make attempts to dislodge them extremely costly. Which doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually. It comes down to how high a price Putin wants to pay.
The continuing defiance of the people trapped in the complex and their refusal to surrender has to be a huge problem for Putin’s image as a strong leader trying to ‘save’ Ukraine. As the saying goes, it’s looking like he’s resorting to the “We had to destroy the village to save it” strategy.