Russian forces made another attempt on Friday to snuff out Ukrainian resistance at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol to allow President Vladimir Putin to declare a battlefield success at a Moscow parade on May 9.
Ukraine’s general staff said Russian troops supported by air strikes and artillery “resumed assault operations to take control of the plant”. Moscow began a mission on Tuesday to storm bunkers under the steelworks, which have become the last redoubt of the Ukrainian military in the strategically important port city.
About 200 civilians, including woman and children, are still thought to be sheltering under the site. The UN said it had evacuated 500 people in total from Azovstal, the city and surrounding areas in recent days. Another attempt was under way on Friday to extract civilians, but fighting could thwart a rescue operation from the facility.
Western and Ukrainian officials believe Russian forces have stepped up their attempts to seize full control of the Azovstal plant in order to deliver a military accomplishment for the Kremlin ahead of May 9, when Russia celebrates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in the second world war.
“The renewed effort by Russia to secure Azovstal and complete the capture of Mariupol is likely linked to the upcoming 9 May Victory Day commemorations and Putin’s desire to have a symbolic success in Ukraine,” British military intelligence said. But it added that the effort had come at a “personnel, equipment and munitions cost” to the invaders.
Ukrainian troops — estimated to number between several hundred and two thousand — are holding out in a warren of underground chambers and tunnels at Azovstal despite weeks of heavy Russian bombardment, including with bunker-busting munitions.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, said Russian troops were trying to storm the Ukrainian positions using secret tunnels revealed to them by a factory electrician.
Analysts said Putin could present the definitive fall of Mariupol as a breakthrough in his stated aim of “denazifying” Ukraine. Many of the troops holding out in the Azovstal plan belong to the Azov regiment, a military unit with far-right origins. The complete capture of the city would also enable the Kremlin to claim it had secured a land corridor between Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and the occupied Donbas region.
In reality, Russia already controls Mariupol, much of which was razed in two months of fighting. Putin declared victory in the city on April 21. The Pentagon said this week that Russia had withdrawn its forces except for about 2,000 troops and aimed to redeploy them elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.
Petro Andriushchenko, adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said on Thursday he had information that Russia planned to stage a victory parade using civilians from detention centres.
They would be “made to wear the Ukrainian [military] uniform and to participate in a so-called war prisoners parade in Mariupol because they [the Russians] lack actual prisoners of war. It will be a grotesque crowd scene for another propaganda image”, said Andriushchenko.
Russian forces also ramped up missile attacks on key infrastructure points in Ukrainian cities this week to try to disrupt supply routes and the delivery of weapons to Ukraine’s military.