A Ukrainian police official on the scene dismissed a Russian Ministry of Defense statement claiming that Russian forces had opened an evacuation corridor around the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
The Russian Armed Forces opened a humanitarian corridor for the withdrawal of Ukrainian military personnel who voluntarily laid down their arms and militants of nationalist formations on April 19, 2022 at 14:00 (2:00 p.m. Moscow time). Withdrawal of Russian and Donetsk People’s Republic units along the whole perimeter of Azovstal was carried out in order to achieve this goal.
The statement also repeated a call for Ukrainian forces to surrender. “Realizing that the commanders of Ukrainian units may not receive such orders and commands from Kyiv authorities, we urge them to make the decision on their own and lay down their arms,” it said.
Myhailo Vershynin, chief of the Mariupol Patrol Police, called the Russian conditions “unacceptable” the Ukrainian forces holding out in the plant.
Vershynin said the Azovstal plant, where Ukrainian defenders are holding out and civilians are sheltering, was being hit with “super-powerful bombs. And this will continue.”
Video of women and children, purportedly sheltering in the basement of the Azovstal plant in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol, emerged Monday evening on social media. Vershynin said the Russians had allowed some civilians to leave, but others were reluctant to exit the city via evacuation routes that led into Russian-controlled territory.
“Those who remained in [Azovstal] shelters are people who categorically do not want to go to the DPR [the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic], they want to go to Ukraine,” Vershynin said.
“That is why we are requesting: Organise a corridor, the safety of the civilians must be guaranteed. The Russians believe it’s fake. It’s not fake. This is a real video filmed in the shelters of the plant. We cannot go to all the shelters due to constant shelling. We have filmed in a shelter that we could reach. And there are hundreds of such people all over the territory. They [the Russians] are declaring humanitarian corridors, a ceasefire. They say, come out, surrender, get the civilians out of here. Those civilians who wanted to leave, have left. Those who stayed they will not go to the Russians. That is why we are asking for a humanitarian corridor to Ukrainian side,” Vershynin said.
