Kyiv: The mayor of the destroyed Ukrainian city of Mariupol said contact was lost with Ukrainian forces holed up in the Azovstal steel plant amid fierce battles with Russian troops as they launched fire. “Unfortunately, yes, there is heavy fighting in Azovstal today,” Vadym Boichenko told Ukrainian television, adding that city officials had “lost contact” with Ukrainian forces inside the plant and had no way of knowing “what’s going on, whether they are safe or not”.
Another 20 civilians were found in the past 24 hours in the Kyiv region, police said Wednesday, raising the total number of bodies found there so far to 1,235. Kyiv regional police chief Andriy Nebytov said the latest discoveries were found in Borodianka and the surrounding villages, some 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Bucha, the town near Kyiv now synonymous with allegations of alleged Russian war crimes. Others were found in the Vyshgorod area just north of the capital.
Fresh Russian attacks in the Donetsk region killed 21 civilians and injured 27, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Attacks and shelling also intensified in Luhansk, with the most difficult area being Popasna, where it was impossible to organize evacuations, regional governor Serhiy Haida said.