KYIV, Ukraine — A furious bid was underway Friday to rescue hundreds of civilians still trapped in the besieged Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian soldiers sheltering in a maze of underground tunnels have prevented Russian forces from fully capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol.
“The next stage of rescuing our people from Azovstal is underway at the moment,” Andriy Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said early Friday.
The rescue attempt — the third of its kind in the last week by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross — comes amid renewed ground assaults on the sprawling steelworks by Russian troops, despite earlier pledges that they would only seal it off.
