20/4 - War in Ukraine
Morning Up-date
I’m monitoring Russian legacy media and telegram chats this morning. I thought this would be useful to keep you up-to-date.
Via the BBC ‘War in Ukraine’ Live Up-dates:
Russia gives a new deadline of 11:00 GMT (Wednesday) to Ukrainian troops in Mariupol to surrender
A marine commander in Ukraine's last stronghold in the southern city - a steelworks plant - says his men might have only hours left
In a video sent to the BBC and other media, Major Serhiy Volyna says his troops will not surrender but want evacuation to a third country
President Volodymyr Zelensky says "the situation in Mariupol remains as severe as possible"
Ukraine has reached a preliminary agreement with Russia for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians there but these have failed in the past
Russia is trying to capture the eastern Donbas region in a new offensive but UK intelligence says Ukrainian forces have fought off several attacks
Who are the fighters remaining in Mariupol?
The Azovstal Iron and Steel Works - a massive, four square-mile plant - has become the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol.
A marine commander in the stronghold issued a video message in the early hours of Wednesday morning saying his men might have only hours left.
Maj Serhiy Volyna said his troops would not surrender, but he pleaded for international assistance for the 500 wounded soldiers and hundreds of women and children he said were hiding with them at the steel plant.
Major Volyna is a commander of the 36th Marine Brigade.
Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, who had been defending Mariupol and were captured by Russian forces last week, were members of the brigade.
The other unit in the steelworks in the Azov Brigade, named after the Sea of Azov which links Mariupol to the rest of the Black Sea.
The marines teamed up with the Azov in Mariupol last week. It's unclear how many Ukrainian troops are left in the plant.
On Tuesday, Azov posted on Telegram: "We will fight, we will use every cartridge we have left, but we call on the homeland to save civilians, the wounded and take away the bodies."
BBC- editor- Nathan Williams
Just a quick note: Aiden Aslin is also known as ‘Cossackgundi.’ He’s a British national who has been serving in the Ukrainian Marines since 2018. He has never served in the Azov Battalion. This is his last post.
Reminiscent of the prisoner video confessions of the Chinese and Lukashenko regimes, Cossackgundi was forced to make this declaration. It was posted on the Russian propaganda vector ‘Intel Slava.’
I’m signing off for now…thanks for reading!
Mo