NO feweZelenskyr than 100 Ukrainian civilians have been evacuated from a ruined steelworks in the city of Mariupol yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, after the United Nations had confirmed a “safe passage operation” was in progress there.
Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Azov Sea, has endured the most destructive siege of the war, with Pope Francis, in an implicit criticism of Russia, telling thousands of people in St Peter’s Square it had been “barbarously bombarded”.
“Grateful to our team! Now they, together with (United Nations), are working on the evacuation of other civilians from the plant,” Zelensky tweeted. The evacuees would reach the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia today, he said.
With fighting stretching along a broad front in southern and eastern Ukraine, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged continued U.S. support for Ukraine when she met Zelensky in an unannounced visit to Kyiv.