An armed serviceman of Donetsk People's Republic militia walks past a building damaged during fighting in Mariupol. Photo / AP
An armed serviceman of Donetsk People's Republic militia walks past a building damaged during fighting in Mariupol. Photo / AP
Russia has issued an ominous ultimatum to the last Ukrainian troops in the besieged port city of Mariupol: "Surrender at dawn or die".
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Ukrainian forces had been driven out of most of the city and only a few remained in the huge steelmill.
"The entire urban area of Mariupol has been completely cleared ... remnants of the Ukrainian group are currently completely blockaded on the territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant," the Russian defence ministry said.
"Their only chance to save their lives is to voluntarily lay down their arms and surrender."
The city of Mariupol in the south of the country has become a symbol of Ukraine's unexpectedly fierce resistance since Russian troops invaded on February 24.
Damaged Ukrainian Army military trucks at the Ilyich Iron & Steel Works in Mariupol. But some troops are reportedly still holed up at another steel works Azovstal across town. Photo / AP
But the battle for control of the port city has come at a horrific cost to trapped and starving civilians. Locals reported seeing Russian troops digging up bodies from residential courtyards and prohibiting new burials. It was unclear why.
As the Russian forces close in further, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy issued a warning.
"The elimination of our troops, of our men [in Mariupol] will put an end to any negotiations [to end the war]," Zelenskyy told the Ukrainska Pravda news website.
"We don't negotiate neither our territories nor our people."
Zelenskyy acknowledged that Ukrainian forces now only control a small part of the city.
He said "certain plans and negotiation processes are being worked out" in an effort to help those forces leave the area but did not elaborate on those efforts.
"The destruction of all our guys in Mariupol — what [Russian troops] are doing now — can put an end to any format of negotiations," he reiterated.
Later, in his nightly video address to the nation, Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs more support from the West to have a chance at saving Mariupol.
"Either our partners give Ukraine all of the necessary heavy weapons, the planes, and without exaggeration immediately, so we can reduce the pressure of the occupiers on Mariupol and break the blockade," he said, "or we do so through negotiations, in which the role of our partners should be decisive."
Zelenskyy said the situation in Mariupol remains "inhuman" and Russia "is deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there."
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russian forces in the south, which came up through the annexed Crimean Peninsula, to fully link up with troops in the Donbas region, Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland.
The port was encircled by Russian troops soon after the invasion, but the outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian military have held on.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the battle, cowering in basements with no utilities for weeks.
A local looks at a badly damaged apartment building near the Ilyich Iron & Steel Works Metallurgical Plant, where some Ukrainian troops were based. Photo / AP
Russian troops have gradually advanced into the city, but groups of Ukrainian forces are continuing to hold out from inside the city's giant metallurgical and heavy machinery plants, which both have a vast network of underground tunnels.
Reuters journalists in Russian-held parts of the city yesterday reached the Ilyich steel works, which Moscow claimed to have captured on Friday.
The factory was reduced to a silent ruin of twisted steel and blasted concrete, with no sign of defenders. Outside, at least half a dozen civilian bodies lay scattered on nearby streets.
Zelenskyy estimated that 2500 to 3000 Ukrainian troops have died in the war, and about 10,000 have been wounded. The office of Ukraine's prosecutor general said Saturday that at least 200 children have been killed, and more than 360 wounded.
Russian forces also have taken captive some 700 Ukrainian troops and more than 1000 civilians, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Saturday.
Ukraine holds about the same number of Russian troops as prisoners and intends to arrange a swap but is demanding the release of civilians "without any conditions," she said.
A resident walks past a damaged vehicle marked with the letter Z, which has become a symbol of the Russian military, in an area of Mariupol the Russian-backed separatists claim to control. Photo / AP
Meanwhile a hostage video of a second British national captured by the Russians in Mariupol emerged online yesterday.
Shaun Pinner, a former Royal Anglian Regiment soldier, looked visibly tired and appeared to be reading from a page or a teleprompter as he said he had been serving alongside Ukrainian marines.
The 24-second video, posted by a journalist for Russian state TV, ends with Pinner saying he has been captured and is now in Donetsk, the Ukrainian separatists' stronghold.
Earlier this week, Russia released a similar video from Aiden Aslin, a fellow British hostage and marine.
Putin 'believes he is winning'
The ultimatum came as Austria's chancellor, the first European leader to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in person since the invasion began, said he thought Putin "believes he is winning the war".
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who met with Putin this past week in Moscow, said the Russian president is "in his own war logic" on Ukraine.
In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, Nehammer said he thinks Putin believes he is winning the war and "we have to look in his eyes and we have to confront him with that, what we see in Ukraine."
Nehammer said he confronted Putin with what he saw during a visit to the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where more than 350 bodies have been found along with evidence of killings and torture under Russian occupation, and "it was not a friendly conversation".
