The mayor of Mariupol has said Ukrainian forces in the city will continue to fight despite being short on ammunition and massively outnumbered.
Vadym Boichenko said: “Our heroic defenders are fighting, holding out with incredible valour and bravery, defending the city of Mariupol; defending our future and our homeland Ukraine.”
“This has to be made very clear, their plight is very difficult because they are vastly outnumbered. It’s very difficult for them to hold out. When they say they’re made of steel, we should also know that steel also has its breaking points, but they’re holding out and the city of Mariupol remains a Ukrainian city,” the mayor added.
His words came as Russian state media released images purporting to show a unit of Ukrainian soldiers surrendering.
Sky News has located the video to the city but cannot verify when it was filmed or if it represents a genuine surrender.
A spokesman for the Russian military said: “In Mariupol, in the area of the Ilyich steel plant, as a result of successful offensive actions by the Russian troops and militia units of the Donetsk People’s Republic, 1,026 Ukrainian servicemen of the 36th Marine Brigade voluntarily laid down their arms and surrendered.”
Mariupol, in Ukraine’s far southeast has been under near-constant bombardment since the start of the Russian invasion.
It is a key port city and has emerged as a stubborn but vital strategic prize for Russia.
The mayor issued staggering and as-yet unconfined update on the number of fatalities.
“90% of infrastructure has been razed by the Russian Federation,” the mayor said.
“The hospitals were bombed, the bomb shelters were bombed, the innocent civilians were killed in Mariupol. 21,000+, is the number of fatalities in Mariupol. These are the fatalities of the shelling of the bombing.”
Ukraine war latest: ‘Mariupol to fall within hours’
With the city largely blocked off, even broad casualty numbers are hard to verify but from satellite imagery, the city resembles the urban wastelands the Russians left behind in Aleppo, Syria and Grozny, Chechnya before that.
On the claims of chemical weapons being used here, there is still no clarity.
“The day before yesterday (Monday), the Russian troops attempted to strike our city with a chemical attack, they tried to drop the chemical agent on our defenders, the agent did affect our defenders, a few people in the outskirts of Mariupol were also affected, they sensed the sweet taste in their mouth,” the mayor claimed.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not repeat the claim but did repeat a claim that the Russians are using phosphorus.
The substance is not illegal under international law as long as it’s used in a battlefield scenario away from civilians.
In a separate allegation, Mayor Boichenko said that the Russians are using mobile crematoria to dispose of bodies.
“Our intelligence have confirmed that the team crematoria have arrived in the city and are preparing to eliminate the evidence of the war crimes committed by the Russian Federation.” he said.
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This allegation followed the release of a photo by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence which they claimed showed a mobile crematorium inside a truck.
Sky News has not been able to verify the image.
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said: “13 mobile crematoriums were used to clean the streets of the bodies of dead civilian residents… Also, the Russian Armed Forces use mobile crematoriums to destroy the bodies of Russian soldiers, in order to hide the real number of their soldiers who were killed in the Russian aggression…”
Read more: What we can expect from Russia’s new commander in charge of invasion
With the Russians now fully withdrawn from the areas around Kyiv, Moscow’s new general in charge, a Syria and Chechnya veteran, is consolidating the command and the troops numbers here in the Far East.
The final throes in the battle for Mariupol look imminent.