LVIV, Ukraine — With full control of the beleaguered port city of Mariupol in hand, Russian forces kept up their assault Tuesday on eastern Ukraine, now the focus of a grinding conflict that bears the hallmarks of a grim war of attrition.
Images posted online depicted wounded Ukrainian servicemen taken on stretchers from the vast Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol to buses that evacuated them to a hospital in Russian-controlled territories. The sprawling plant was the soldiers’ last redoubt in the strategic city, whose capture gives Russia a badly needed victory and a bastion on the Sea of Azov.
Overnight, 264 Ukrainian defenders, including more than 50 who were seriously wounded, were evacuated from Azovstal under Russian military escort. More than 200 others were transported through a humanitarian corridor to Olenivka, a town controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
