For months, the steelworks fighters were subjected to nightmare conditions as Russia laid siege to the enormous complex. According to Ukraine’s president, roughly 2,500 people who eventually surrendered are being held captive.
Russia is preparing a further attempt on the northern axis, according to reports of heavy shelling near Izyum in eastern Ukraine, according to Britain’s defence minister.
Russia’s advance on the southern Popasna axis has stopped over the previous week, according to a tweet, and the country is looking to make gains elsewhere.
“Russia will almost probably need to break through on at least one of these axes to transfer tactical advantages into operational success and progress toward its political goal of controlling the entire Donetsk Oblast,” the ministry warned.
Meanwhile, Russia has begun handing over the bodies of Ukrainian fighters slain in the struggle for Mariupol’s last position, the Azovstal steelworks.
According to an Azov Regiment spokeswoman and one of its military officials, dozens of bodies from the facility and its maze of tunnels are being sent to Kyiv for DNA testing.
During the three-month Russian bombardment of the steelworks, the regiment was among the Ukrainian forces holed up with civilians.
In May, under dreadful conditions, Ukrainian forces in Azovstal surrendered, handing Russia control of the southern city that had suffered the war’s fiercest assault.
There’s no way of knowing how many bodies are still within the factory.
Many of the fighters who were permitted to go face uncertain fates, with President Zelenskyy claiming that 2,500 of them are being held captive.
According to Ukrainian officials, the first official acknowledged swap of military remains since the war began took occurred on Saturday in the Zaporizhzhia area.
Each team received 160 bodies.
All of the Ukrainians were from Azovstal, according to Anna Holovko, a spokeswoman for the Azov Regiment, and at least 52 are believed to be from the regiment.
Maksym Zhorin, a former Azov leader now based in Kyiv, verified that bodies from the steel mill were among those swapped.
‘Do not give up,’ said the heroes of Sievierodonetsk.
Russia is now concentrating its efforts in the Donbas, a territory in eastern Ukraine that it is desperate to take after failing to seize other areas such as Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
The city of Sievierodonetsk, which has a population of roughly 100,000, is crucial to the plan, and fierce conflicts are ongoing.
President Zelenskyy of Ukraine went on the front lines earlier this week. “Our heroes do not give up positions in Sievierodonetsk,” he stated in his nighttime speech on Monday.
“Strong street fighting continues throughout the city.”
Russia is attempting to conquer the city, which is the largest remaining Ukrainian-held city in Luhansk, one of the two areas that make up the Donbas, according to the country’s defence ministry.
According to Oleksandr Stryuk, the chairman of the Sievierodonetsk administration, the conflict appeared to be finely balanced, with “the situation shifting from hour to hour.”
Mr Zelenskyy also warned that Russian forces were planning to conquer the city of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, which is home to around 700,000 people, bringing the enemy closer to Ukraine’s heartland.
“The most dangerous scenario exists in the Zaporizhzhia region,” the president remarked.
Both the United Kingdom and the United States are providing accurate long-range missile systems to Ukraine in order to combat the Russian artillery that is wreaking havoc in the Donbass.
If the West supplies such weapons, President Putin warned on Sunday that additional targets will be struck. For the first time in over a month, missiles hit Kyiv on the same day.
The Russian diplomat rushes out of a conference amid allegations of a food shortage.
As European Council President Charles Michel accused Moscow of fueling a global food catastrophe with its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia stormed out of a Security Council meeting on Monday.
Mr Michel had also accused Russian forces of war crimes and crimes against humanity, citing claims of sexual violence as “a strategy of torture, intimidation, and repression” – the subject of the Security Council debate.
Mr Nebenzia had “categorically disputed” any charges of sexual violence by Russian soldiers during his own statement earlier in the meeting, calling them a “fraud.”
Mr Nebenzia, obviously upset as he exited the Security Council chamber during Michel’s address, told Reuters: “I couldn’t stay” because of “the lies that Charles Michel came here to propagate.”
Britons may be sentenced to death.
According to Ukraine’s military, two persons were killed in shelling in Donetsk and Luhansk on Monday as Russian soldiers shot at more than 20 towns. Russia denies that civilians are being targeted.
Russia was also marching into Sloviansk, a city around 53 miles (85 kilometres) west of Sievierodonetsk, according to the military ministry.
On television, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko remarked, “The front line is under relentless fire.”
“The enemy is firing near Lyman as well, with the goal of destroying our defensive lines and marching on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.” Svyatohirsk is likewise being shelled for the same reason.”
People are still being evacuated from the area, especially from Sloviansk, where roughly 24,000 people remain.
“Even though it is late, people are finally realising that it is time to depart,” Mr Kyrylenko added.
Three British males accused of fighting for Ukraine as mercenaries are being tried in the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, according to the president of the self-declared breakaway province.
If convicted of charges that include attempting to seize power, they might face the death penalty.
Many foreigners with military expertise from all around the world have travelled to Ukraine to fight in the battle.
