Russian ultimatum to Ukraine forces in Mariupol expires

On Sunday, a Russian ultimatum to the last standing Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol expired, putting Moscow on the verge of a decisive strategic triumph in the southeastern port city.

Despite Moscow turning its military attention to capturing control of the eastern Donbas region and building a land corridor to already-annexed Crimea, continued Russian air attacks damaged a weapons complex in Kyiv.

“During the night, high-precision, air-launched missiles destroyed an ammunitions factory near the settlement of Brovary, Kyiv region,” Russia’s defense ministry said, the third such air strike near the capital in as many days.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged Russian forces to allow evacuations from Mariupol, which Moscow’s forces claim to have brought under their control, though Ukrainian fighters remain holed up in the city’s fortress-like steelworks.

Moscow on Saturday issued an ultimatum to the fighters, urging them to lay down their arms by 6:00 am Moscow time (0300 GMT) and to evacuate before 13:00 pm.

“Once again, we demand the opening of a humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of civilians, especially women and children, from Mariupol,” Vereshchuk wrote.

Russia’s defense ministry said that there were up to 400 mercenaries inside the encircled Azovstal steel plant, calling on Ukrainian forces inside to “lay down their arms and surrender in order to save their lives.”

Moscow claims Kyiv has ordered fighters of the nationalist Azov battalion to “shoot on the spot” anyone wanting to surrender.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said that if Russian forces kill Kyiv’s troops remaining to defend the city, then a fledgling negotiation process to end nearly two months of fighting would be ended.

Zelensky said the situation in Mariupol is “inhuman” and called on the West to immediately provide heavy weapons.

Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukraine’s unexpectedly fierce resistance since Russian troops invaded the former Soviet state on February 24.

“The situation in Mariupol remains as severe as possible. Just inhuman,” Zelensky said in a video address.

“Russia is deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there.”

The UN World Food Programme has said that over 100,000 civilians in Mariupol are on the verge of famine, and lacking water and heating.

Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said the city was on “the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe” and warned the country was compiling evidence of alleged Russian atrocities there.

“We will hand everything over to The Hague. There will be no impunity,” he said.

With fighting raging in the east, Deputy Prime Minister Vereshchuk said that humanitarian corridors allowing civilians to flee would not open on Sunday after failing to agree terms with Russian forces.

Ukrainian authorities have urged people in the eastern Donbas area to move west to escape a large-scale Russian offensive to capture its composite regions, Donetsk and Lugansk.

Celebrating Easter Sunday in Rome, Pope Francis called for peace in Ukraine during this “Easter of war”.

“May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged,” the pontiff said in his traditional Urbi ET Orbi address on St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican.

“Let there be a decision for peace. May there be an end to the flexing of muscles while people are suffering.”