Ukraine war: Hundreds trapped in Mariupol steelworks despite evacuations

By Laura Bicker in Zaporizhzhia

A few civilians with their own cars are making use of the humanitarian corridor brokered by the United Nations and the Red Cross to get to the refugee centre.

Most of the vehicles are battered, one even had its windscreen smashed. Others are using plastic film and sticky tape to hold parts of the car together.

Daniil had to scramble through the city looking for spare parts for his car after it was hit by shrapnel from a shell which landed just five metres away. Peeking out the plastic film window from the passenger seat was his husky dog, Sly.

After handing over his papers to officials, Daniil jumped out the car and threw his hands in the air. His fingers made the V for victory sign.

“It’s been difficult, tough, frightening. I lived on a tugboat in the port in Mariupol. We couldn’t even raise our heads. It was so scary to be there,” he said.

“Mariupol used to have a wonderful park. It was a prospering city. Now it’s all gone.”

I asked him what he will do now.

“I am going to leave. I am going to get as far from everything as possible.”

Mariupol is almost fully under Russian control, with much of the city destroyed in weeks of heavy Russian bombardment and intense street fighting. Taking the port city is a key Russian war aim, and some of Russian troops there have already been released to join Moscow’s wider offensive in the eastern Donbas region.

However, Ukrainian soldiers have continued to defend the steelworks.

Azovstal and its maze of of underground tunnels – surrounded by water on three sides – has become their fortress, plant director general Enver Tskitishvili told the BBC on Monday. It has 36 bunkers, some of them able to withstand a direct nuclear strike.

The Ukrainian government had updated Azovstal’s bunker system in the wake of Russia’s annexation of the southern Crimea peninsula and Moscow’s backing of rebels in Donbas in 2014.

Earlier this year, it even gave Ukrainian fighters details and maps of the underground network, and supplied the plant with 40,000 packages of food – each one enough for one person for one day.

“But we didn’t expect such a genocide and inhumane war,” Mr Tskitishvili said.