Russia-Ukraine Crisis: The UN and Red Cross said Tuesday 101 civilians were evacuated from the tunnels of the Azovstal plant in Ukraine’s battered city of Mariupol but warned that others remain trapped. It was the first completed civilian evacuation from the giant Azovstal steel factory, where Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have for weeks been trapped; hiding as Russian forces besieged and pummelled the city.
Russian forces began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant reached relative safety. The UN secretary-general said he hopes Ukraine and Russia can organize “more humanitarian pauses,” such as the one that allowed the evacuation of about 100 Ukrainian civilians from the Azovstal steel plant.
The European Union will slap new sanctions on Russia for waging war against Ukraine, targeting Moscow’s oil industry, more Russian banks and those responsible for misinformation, the EU’s top diplomat said on Tuesday. US have learned a great deal about Russian military shortfalls and capabilities in the first two months of the war in Ukraine. But they warned that Moscow is learning from its mistakes as the war shifts to a new phase.
Russian strikes hit several regions across Ukraine on Tuesday, including the western hub of Lviv and a mountainous region bordering Hungary which was targeted for the first time, officials said. The mayor of Lviv, near the Polish border, said the strikes caused power outages in parts of the city. “As a result of the rocket strike (on Lviv), two power substations were damaged. A part of the city doesn’t have electricity,” Andriy Sadoviy said on Twitter. He said one person was wounded.