Ukraine ends bloody battle for Mariupol; Azovstal fighters evacuated

Ukrainian fighters have ended their weeks-long defense of a besieged steel plant in the strategic port city of Mariupol, as hundreds of combatants — dozens of them seriously wounded — were evacuated from the complex Monday.

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“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address, as the delicate operation took place. “We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys. Among them are the seriously wounded. They are being provided with medical aid.”

Mariupol’s Azovstal Iron and Steel Works and its network of underground tunnels served as a shelter and final foothold for hundreds of Ukrainian fighters, including many from the controversial far-right Azov Regiment, as well as trapped civilians.

They were holed up in the facility for weeks under an intense Russian assault, before all women, children and elderly people were evacuated under an agreement earlier this month. Those who made it to safety described a brutal siege in cold and fetid bunkers, where they lived without sunlight as food and water supplies dwindled.