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The first civilians fleeing the besieged steel plant that has been Mariupol's last holdout have reached relative safety in a Ukrainian-controlled city.
The successful evacuation follows weeks of failed efforts to help those trapped in the key port city, which is almost entirely under Russian control. It comes as Russian forces launch a renewed attack on the Azovstal plant, where hundreds of civilians have been sheltering for weeks with Mariupol's last Ukrainian defenders.
Even as the Kremlin's invasion struggles to make progress, a senior U.S. official has warned that Moscow will try to annex large parts of eastern Ukraine as soon as this month as it seeks to bring large parts of the country under its control for the long term.
Kyiv's fierce defense has helped rally Western allies to offer growing support, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailing “Ukraine’s finest hour” in an address to Parliament.
Military strikes hit rail infrastructure, Ukrainian officials say
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials say the Russian military has struck railroad infrastructure across the country.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, the head of the Ukrainian railways, said the Russian strikes Tuesday hit six railway stations in the country’s central and western regions, inflicting heavy damage.
Kamyshin said at least 14 trains were delayed because of the attacks.
Dnipro region Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said Russian missiles struck railway infrastructure in the area, wounding one person and disrupting train movement.
The Ukrainian military also reported strikes on railways in the Kirovohrad region, saying there were unspecified casualties.
Ukraine’s railroads have played an important role in moving people, goods and military supplies during the war as roads and bridges have been damaged.
War worsening problems caused by pandemic, Blinken says
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the war in Ukraine has worsened problems in the Western Hemisphere caused by the coronavirus pandemic, such as rising poverty.
Concerns about the war’s decreasing the availability of food and increasing prices have sparked fears of increasing hunger and starvation in other countries. Blinken said at the annual Conference of the Americas luncheon Tuesday that the effects of the war are being felt after the pandemic inflicted “massive economic harm throughout the region.”
Giving the luncheon’s keynote address in Washington, Blinken said: “Now, with the Russian government’s brutal war of aggression on Ukraine, many of these pre-existing problems, these pre-existing conditions, have been made worse, raising the price of essential commodities throughout the Americas, from fertilizer to wheat to petroleum, cutting off key export markets for many industries in the Americas and forcing households across the region to make very wrenching choices as the cost of living skyrockets.”
Blinken plans to chair two U.N. meetings this month to spotlight how the war in Ukraine and other conflicts are affecting the availability of food and prices.
156 Ukrainians rescued from Azovstal steel plant
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 156 Ukrainians arrived in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday after being held in bomb shelters at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol for more than two months.
"We will continue to do everything possible to get all of our people from Mariupol, from Azovstal," he said on Telegram. "It is difficult. But we need everyone. Everyone who remains there, both civilians and military. There was not a single day where we were not trying to solve this issue.”
He said Russia was "continuing to conduct mass strikes at Azovstal."
"They are trying to storm the compound," he said.
'There's a lot of wounded; there's a lot of dead'
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — A woman rescued with her two sons from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol on Tuesday said that while she was grateful that most of her family had been evacuated, many other Ukrainians had been left behind.
"Today, almost most of the buses stand empty," said Oksana Maidenyuk, referring to the buses Ukraine supplied to evacuate people who had been sheltering in the plant's basement.
"They do not let us out. Out of 50 buses they allowed only five buses to leave. The rest were empty, said Maidenyuk, 40, the mother of Vova Maidenyuk, 14.
She said that although she and her sons got out, her husband, a soldier, stayed at the plant, as did injured military members.
"There’s a lot of wounded. there’s a lot of dead,” she said.
'It was very scary for me,' says boy rescued from steel plant
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — A 14-year-old boy was among those rescued from a steel plant in Mariupol on Tuesday.
"It was very scary for me," Vova Maidenyuk said of his two months sheltering in the basement with other Ukrainians.
He said that his brother and his mother were evacuated with him but that his father, a soldier, stayed behind to fight.
"The soldiers there need help," he said. "My father tells me they don't have enough food there."
Explosions heard in Lviv, mayor says
Explosion were heard in Lviv on Tuesday, and there were power outages in parts of the city, local Ukrainian officials said on Telegram.
"Everyone stay in shelters," Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said, bookending his post with red exclamation points.
The governor of the region, Maksym Kozytskiy, posted that according to preliminary information, "missile strikes were fired on Lviv region."
Push to arm Ukraine strains U.S. weapons stockpile
WASHINGTON — The planes take off almost daily from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware — hulking C-17s loaded up with Javelins, Stingers, howitzers and other materiel being hustled to Eastern Europe to resupply Ukraine’s military in its fight against Russia.
The game-changing impact of the arms is exactly what President Joe Biden hoped to spotlight Tuesday, when he was to visit a Lockheed Martin plant in Alabama that builds the portable Javelin anti-tank weapons that have played a crucial role in Ukraine.
But Biden’s visit is also drawing attention to a growing concern about whether the U.S. can sustain the cadence of shipping vast amounts of arms to Ukraine while maintaining the healthy stockpile it may need if a new conflict erupts elsewhere.
Attack in eastern Ukraine kills 10, wounds 15
KYIV, Ukraine — The Donetsk regional governor said Russian troops Tuesday shelled a chemical plant in Avdiivka, a city in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 more.
“The Russians knew exactly where to aim — the workers just finished their shift and were waiting for a bus at a bus stop to take them home,” Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote in a Telegram post. “Another cynical crime by Russians on our land.”
