Russia Attacks Steel Plant After Some Evacuations

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

MARIUPOL/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Russia’s military resumed attacking a steel plant in Ukraine’s bombed-out city of Mariupol with terrified civilians and soldiers trapped inside after some escaped.

The shelling came after a brief cease-fire over the weekend allowed the first evacuation of civilians from the plant.

The attacks came as a senior U.S. official warned that Russia is planning to annex large portions of eastern Ukraine this month and recognize the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic.

Michael Carpenter, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said those suspected actions are “straight out of the Kremlin’s playbook.” He warned Moscow that the United States or its allies would not recognize it.

In Mariupol, more than 100 people — including older women and mothers with small children — left the rubble-strewn Azovstal steelworks on Sunday.

They set out in buses and ambulances for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles (230 kilometers) to the northwest, according to authorities and video released by the two sides

But a U.S. security official told Worthy News that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were in the plant and that it was unlikely that everyone would escape before the plant was pulverized.

Mariupol had been a symbol of resistance against the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, though Russian troops almost completely overrun the city.

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