Ukraine war: 101 evacuees from Mariupol steel plant reach safety; Putin says Russia ready for talks with Ukraine
- The UN says 101 civilians have been ‘successfully evacuated’ from Ukraine’s besieged and battered port city of Mariupol in a joint effort with the Red Cross
- Vladimir Putin told France’s Macron the West must stop supplying weapons to Ukraine and accused Kyiv of not taking talks to end the conflict seriously
Dozens of evacuees who cowered for weeks in the bunkers of a steel works in Russian-occupied Mariupol reached the safety of Kyiv-controlled Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday where hospitals were ready to treat people for anything from burns to malnutrition.
Exhausted-looking people, including young children and pensioners laden with bags, clambered off buses that pulled into the car park of a shopping centre in Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine not far from the front lines.
More than 200 civilians remain in the Azovstal steel plant, according to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, with a total of 100,000 civilians still in the city that has been devastated by weeks of Russian siege and shelling.
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Why the battle for Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant matters
“Thanks to the operation, 101 women, men, children, and older persons could finally leave the bunkers below the Azovstal steelworks and see the daylight after two months,” Osnat Lubrani, UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said.
The sprawling Azovstal industrial complex and its many bunkers and tunnels became a refuge for both civilians and Ukrainian fighters as Moscow laid siege to Mariupol.
The United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) coordinated the five-day operation that began on April 29 to bring out women, children and the elderly from the steel works.
Other families and individuals from outside the steel works joined the convoy of buses and ambulances on its way, the ICRC said.
