Photo: Alexander Ermochenko/REUTERS / Deutsche Welle
Russian forces attacked Mariupol with long-range missiles, a resource Moscow is using for the first time since it invaded Ukraine, said Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk.
The strategic Mariupol, next to the Sea of Azov, it is one of the main goals of the Russians in their effort to achieve total control of the Donbas region and form a land corridor in the east of the country from the annexed Crimean peninsula.
Motuzyank maintained that in Mariupol street fighting continued, for example, at the Illich steelworks, near the port.
With this, Motuzyank contradicts the Russian version according to which the steel company would already be under full control of the invaders.
Mariupol housed 400,000 people before the war, but was reduced to rubble in seven weeks of siege and bombing. Thousands of civilians have died in the city and tens of thousands are still trapped.
efe/reuters /rr