Dozens of Ukrainians were feared dead Sunday after a Russian bomb flattened a school sheltering about 90 people in its basement, while Ukrainian troops refused to surrender at a besieged steel plant that ꦰMoscow's invading forces sped to seize before Russia's Victory Day holiday.
The governor of Luhansk province, one of two areas that make up the eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, said the school in the village of Bilohorivka caught fire after Saturday's bombing. Emergen♔cy crews found two bodies and rescued 30 people, he said.
“Most likely, all 60 people who remain under the rubble are now dead,” Gov. S💛erhiy Haidai wrote on the Telegrﷺam messaging app.
Russian shelling also killed two boys, ages 11𝓰 and 14, in the nearby💙 town of Pryvillia, he said.
The largest European conflict since World War II has developed into a punishing war of attrition due to the Ukrainian military's unexpectedly effective defe𓆉nse.
Since failing to capture Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, Moscow's forces have attacked cities, towns and villages in eaꦏstern and southern Ukraine but not gained much ground, according to Western military analysts.
To demonstrate success in time for Victory Day on Monday, the Russian military worked to complete its takeover of Mariupol, 𒈔which has been under relentless assault since the start of the war.
The sprawling seaside steel mill where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters were making a last 🍒stand is the only part of the city not under Russian control.
All the remaining women, children and older civilians who had been sheltering with the fighers in the Azovstal plant were evacuated Saturday. The troops still inside have refused to ꧃surrender; hundreds are believed to be wounded.
Capt. Sviatoslav Palamar, the deputy commander of the Azov ▨Regiment, a Ukrainian National Guard battalion holding the steel mill, told an online news conference Sunday that the site was targeted overnight by three fighter🐟 jet sorties, artillery and tanks.
“We are under constant shelling🥂,” he said, adding that Russian infantry tried to storm the plant -- a claim Russian officials denied in recen♔t days - and to lay landmines.
Pal🐭amar said there was a “ꦏmultitude of casualties” at the plant.
🌺Lt. Illya Samoilenko, another member of the Azov Regiment, declined at the same news conference to offer a number of how many soldiers remained in the plant. Both the soldiers had long beards and looked tired.
“The truth is we are unique because no one expected we would last so long,” Samoilenko said. "Surrender for us is unacceptable because we c♊annot grant such a gift to the eꦬnemy.”
After rescuers evacuated the last civilians, Ukrainian President Vo⭕lodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that work would continue Sunday on securing humanitarian corridors for residents of🐲 Mariupol and surrounding towns to leave.
The Ukrainian government has🗹 reached out to international organizations to try to secure safe passage for the fighters remaining in the plant's underground tunnels and bunkers.
The Ukrainian leader was expected to hol♓d online talks Sunday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, U.S. President Joe Biden and leaders from other Group꧃ of Seven countries.
The m⛎eeting is partly meant to display unity among Western allies on Victory in Europe Day, which marks Nazi Ger🐎many's 1945 surrender.
Elsewhere on Ukraine's coast, explosions echoeꦉd again Sunday across the major Black Sea port of Odesa, which Russia struck with six cruise missiles on Saturday, while rocket fire damaged some 250 apartments,🌜 according to the city council.
Ukrainian leaders warned that attacks would onl꧂y worsen in the lead-up to Victory Day, the May 9 holiday when Russia celebrates Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 with military parades.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is believed to want to proclaim some kind 𓆏of triumph▨ in Ukraine when he addresses the troops on Red Square on Monday.
Zelenskyy released a video address Sunday marking the day of the Allied 💯victory in Europe ⛎77 years ago, drawing parallels between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the evils of Nazism.
The black-and-white video, published on 🍷social media, showed Zelenskyy standing in front of a ruined apartment block in Borodyanka, one of the Kyiv suburbs pummel♍led before Russian troops withdrew from the capital region weeks ago.
“Every year, on May 8, along with the whole civilized world, we pay our respects to everyone who 🌄deജfended the planet against Nazism during World War II,” Zelenskyy said.
“We knew the price our ancestors have paid for this wisdom. We knew how important it was to protect it and pass it on to our descendants. … But we hadn't any notion that our generation will witness the abuse of these words,” he said�𓆏�.
In neighboring Moldov💧🌊a, Russian and separatists troops were on “full alert," the Ukrainian military warned.
The region has increasingly beco☂me a focus of worries that the conf🎶lict could expand beyond Ukraine's borders.
Pro-Russian forces broke off the Transnistria section of Moldova in 1992, and Russian troops have been stationed there since, ostensibly as peacekeepers. Those forces are on “full combat readiness,” Ukraine said, 💛without giving details on hℱow it came to the assessment.
Moscow has sought to sweep across southern Ukraine both to cut off the country from t൩he Black Sea and to create a corridor to Transnistria. But it has struggled to achieve those objectives.
In a sign of the dogged resistance that has sustained the fighting into its 11th week, Ukraine's military struck Russian positions on a Black Sea island that was captured in the war's first days and has becom💃e a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed Ukraine targeting Russian-held Snake Island in a bid to impede Russia's efforts to control the☂ sea.
A satellite image taken Sunday morning by Planet Labs PBC s🐠howed smoke rising from two sites on the island. On the island's southern edge, a fire smoked next to debris.
That corresponded to a video released by the Ukrainian military showing a strike on a Rusꦍsian helicopter that had flown to the island.
A Planet Labs image fro💜m Saturday showed most of the island's buildings, as well as what appeared to be a Serna-class landing craft, destroyed by Ukrainian drone attacks🍎.
The most intense combat in recent days has taken place in eastern Ukraine. A Ukrainian co💟unteroffensive near Kharkiv, a city in the northeast that is the country's second-largest, “is making significant progress and will likely advance to the Russian border in the coming days or weeks,” according to the Institute for the Study of Waღr.
The Washington-based think tank added that “the Ukrai﷽nian counteroffensive demonstrates promising Ukrainian capabilities.”
However, the Ukrainian army withdrew from Luhansk province's embattled c𝓡ity of Popasna, Haidai, the regional governor, said Su♈nday.
In a video interview posted ♉on his Telegram channel, Haidai said that Kyiv's troops had “moved to stronger positions, which they had prepared ahead of ti๊me.”
The Russia-backed rebels have established a breakaway region in Luhansk and neighbouring Donetsk, which together make up the Donbas. Rusﷺsia has targeted areas still under Ukrainian control.
“All free settlements in the Luhansk region are hot spots,” Haidai said. “Right now, there are shooting battles in (the villages) of Bilohorivka, Voivodivka and towards Popasna.” (AP)
