Ukrainian soldiers holed up in a steel factory in the shattered city of Mariupol have ignored a Russian surrender-or-die ultimatum as Moscow appeared poised for a strategic victory in the southeastern port city.
The fall of Mariupol, the site of a merciless seven-week-old siege that has reduced much of the city to a smoking ruin, would be Russia’s biggest conquest of the war and free up troops to take part in the battles for control of Ukraine’s industrial east.
