The long-besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol will fall to the Kremlin’s forces on Thursday, the leader of the Russian republic of Chechnya has said.
Ramzan Kadyrov, whose forces are fighting for Vladimir Putin, claimed Russia will finally succeed in capturing the Azovstal steelworks, Ukraine’s last foothold in the city, where hundreds of fighters and civilians remain.
“Before lunchtime, or after lunch, Azovstal will be completely under the control of the forces of the Russian Federation,” he said, two months into Russia’s relentless siege of the port city.
Meanwhile, the British prime minister Boris Johnson said peace talks between Ukraine and Russia are likely to fail because negotiating with Mr Putin is like dealing with “a crocodile when it’s got your leg in its jaws”.
“It is very hard to see how the Ukrainians can negotiate with Putin now given his manifest lack of good faith,” he said.
Elsewhere, US president Joe Biden will give more details on Thursday about his plans to provide roughly $2.6 billion of military assistance to Ukraine.
