Civilians' evacuation ends, Moscow says

ZAPORIZHZHIA－The humanitarian operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal steel plant in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol has ended, Moscow says, as Russian forces kept up their barrage in the southern part of the country.

"Thanks to unprecedented measures taken by the leadership of the Russian Federation, with the active participation of representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the humanitarian operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal plant has been completed today," Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, said on Saturday.

Ukraine confirmed the news, saying that all women, children and the elderly had been evacuated from the steel plant, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

"This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation has been completed," she said, noting that the evacuation was carried out following the order of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Preparations for another stage of evacuation comprising the wounded and medics had begun, and helping residents elsewhere in Mariupol and surrounding settlements to safety, Zelensky said.

Inside the plant, Ukrainian fighters have vowed not to surrender. The Soviet-era Azovstal steel mill, the last holdout for Ukrainian forces in the key port city, has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian effort to capture swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine in the conflict.

On the diplomatic front, US President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders were due to hold a video call with Zelensky on Sunday in a show of unity before Victory Day in Russia on Monday.

Weapons pouring in

Britain pledged to provide a further 1.3 billion pounds ($1.6 billion), double its previous spending commitments and what it said was the country's highest rate of spending on a conflict since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Washington and European members of the trans-Atlantic NATO alliance have supplied Kyiv with heavy weapons but say they will not take part in the fighting.

US officials have also said their country has provided intelligence to Ukraine to help counter the Russian attack but have denied that this intelligence includes precise targeting information.

On the battlefield, Moscow has sought to sweep across southern Ukraine both to cut off the country from the sea and create a corridor to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria.

On Saturday, six Russian cruise missiles fired from aircraft hit Odessa, where a curfew is in place until Tuesday morning. Videos posted on social media showed thick black smoke rising over the Black Sea port city.

The Odessa city council said four of the missiles hit a furniture factory, with the debris badly damaging high-rise apartment buildings. The other two missiles hit the city's airport, where the runway had already been taken out in a previous Russian attack.

Agencies - Xinhua