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Russian troops intensify campaign to seize Ukraine's Mariupol: audio report

14.04.2022 18:00
More than 1,000 Ukrainian marines have surrendered in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol, Russia's defence ministry said this week of Moscow's main target in the eastern Donbas region, which it has yet to bring under its control.
Audio
Burning buildings in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, April 9, 2022.
Burning buildings in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, April 9, 2022.Photo: EPA/MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES via PAP

If the Russians seize the Azovstal industrial district, where the marines have been holed up, they would be in full control of Mariupol, the lynchpin between Russian-held areas to the west and east providing a land corridor for troops and supplies.

It would be the first major city to fall to Russian forces since they invaded Ukraine on February 24.

"Mariupol is still Ukrainian," the mayor of the besieged port city, Vadym Boychenko, said on Wednesday.

He added that 90 percent of the infrastructure in the city had been destroyed and the death toll could surpass 20,000.

That same day, Ukraine’s Azov battalion reported that a Russian drone had dropped a "poisonous substance" on troops and civilians in Mariupol, causing respiratory failure and neurological problems.

Halyna Pastushuk has this report.

Click on the audio player above to listen.