Ukraine received fighter jets to help resist the Russian invasion, as Moscow intensified its offensive in the east where a besieged officer in Mariupol warned Wednesday his forces were facing their \"last days, if not hours\".<\/p>\n
The West has responded to a renewed Russian push into the Donbas region with fresh weapons for Kyiv and a push to increase \"Moscow's international isolation\".<\/p>\n
The Pentagon said that Ukraine had recently received fighter planes and parts to bolster its air force, declining to specify the number of aircraft and their origin.<\/p>\n
Kyiv has asked its Western partners to provide MiG-29s, which its pilots already know how to fly and a handful of Eastern European countries have.<\/p>\n
Control of Donbas and the southern port of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a southern corridor to the Crimean peninsula that it annexed in 2014, depriving Ukraine of much of its coastline.<\/p>\n
In the latest ultimatum issued in its battle to capture Mariupol, Moscow made another call for the city's defenders to surrender on Wednesday by 2 pm Moscow time (1100 GMT) and announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor for any Ukrainian troops who agreed to lay down their arms.<\/p>\n
As the deadline approached, a commander in the besieged Azovstal power plant issued a desperate plea for help, saying his marines were \"maybe facing our last days, if not hours\".<\/p>\n
\"The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to one,\" Serhiy Volyna from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade said.<\/p>\n
\"We appeal and plead to all world leaders to help us. We ask them to use the procedure of extraction and take us to the territory of a third-party state.\"<\/p>\n
Thousands of troops and civilians remain holed up in the plant.<\/p>\n
An advisor to the mayor of Mariupol described a \"horrible situation\" in the encircled complex and reported that up to 2,000 people -- mostly women and children -- are without \"normal\" supplies of drinking water, food, and fresh air.<\/p>\n
During an interview broadcast on CNN Tuesday, Pavlo Kyrylenko -- who oversees the Donetsk region's military administration -- insisted Mariupol remained contested.<\/p>\n
\"The Ukrainian flag is flying over the city,\" he said. \"There are certain districts where street fighting is continuing. I can't say the Russians are controlling them.\"<\/p>\n
Offering some respite, Kyiv said early Wednesday it had agreed with Russian forces to open a safe route for civilians to flee the devastated city.<\/p>\n
\"We have managed to get a preliminary agreement on a humanitarian corridor for women, children and elderly persons,\" Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.<\/p>\n
- 'We are bombed everywhere' -<\/p>\n
Elsewhere on the front lines, Ukraine's defence ministry reported its troops had beaten back a Russian attack in the city of Izium, south of the partly blockaded second city of Kharkiv.<\/p>\n
In the town of Novodruzhesk, 65-year-old resident Nadya said: \"We are bombed everywhere.\"<\/p>\n
\"It's a miracle that we're still alive,\" she said, her voice trembling.<\/p>\n
\"We were lying on the ground and waiting. Since February 24, we've been sleeping in the cellar.\"<\/p>\n
Kyiv also claimed enemy losses in a Ukrainian counter-attack near the town of Marinka in Donetsk.<\/p>\n
The governor of the eastern Lugansk region Sergiy Gaiday said Ukrainian forces were holding their ground in the face of heavy fighting.<\/p>\n
\"We have positional battles in the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna. The enemy cannot do anything though. They are losing people and equipment there,\" Gaiday said.<\/p>\n
\"Our guys are shooting down drones there. Shooting down planes on the border of the Lugansk and Kharkiv regions, so they are holding on.\"<\/p>\n
Russian forces, meanwhile, said \"high-precision air-based missiles\" hit 13 Ukrainian positions in parts of Donbas while other air strikes \"hit 60 military assets\", including in towns close to the eastern front line.<\/p>\n
- 'War crime' -<\/p>\n
President Vladimir Putin has said he launched the so-called military operation in Ukraine in February to save Russian speakers in the country from a \"genocide\" carried out by a \"neo-Nazi\" regime.<\/p>\n
But his forces have faced allegations of war crimes -- most recently from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said Tuesday that Putin was responsible for atrocities in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\"The killing of thousands of civilians as we have seen is a war crime for which the Russian president bears responsibility,\" Scholz said.<\/p>\n
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also denounced Russia's offensive, and issued calls for a four-day truce to mark the Orthodox Holy Week.<\/p>\n
\"Instead of a celebration of new life, this Easter coincides with a Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine,\" Guterres told reporters.<\/p>\n
\"The intense concentration of forces and firepower makes this battle inevitably more violent, bloody and destructive.\"<\/p>\n
Guterres called for a \"humanitarian pause\" from Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday on April 24.<\/p>\n
\"Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance.\"<\/p>\n
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Ukraine received fighter jets to help resist the Russian invasion, as Moscow intensified its offensive in the east where a besieged officer in Mariupol warned Wednesday his forces were facing their \"last days, if not hours\". The West has responded to a renewed Russian push into the Donbas region with fresh weapons for Kyiv and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,1],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-91011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed","category-non-classifiee"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n