Setting the Standard for Courage Under Fire

"I think they [attacking Russian troops] are trying to catch some of us alive before May 9 [Russian Victory Day Parade, memorializing the WWII battle against Nazi Germany] and send us to the parade in cages."

"Forget about us, we won't get out of here."

Trapped Ukraine solider, in Azovstal plant, Mariupol

 

"The situation is extremely hard. However, we will continue carrying out the order to keep up our defences no matter what."

"I am proud of my soldiers who are making superhuman efforts to contain the pressure of the enemy."

Lt.Col. Denis Prokopenko

 

"There are local residents there, civilians -- hundreds of them there."

"There are children waiting for rescue.There are more than thirty kids."

Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko

"It will take time simply to lift people out of these basements [in the vast maze of tunnels in the underground basements of the Azovstal metalworks plant]."

"In the present conditions, we cannot use heavy equipment to clear the rubble [caused by the non-stop bombing] away."

"It all has to be done by hand."

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

A group of Mariupol evacuees head for Zaporizhzhia. Photograph: Ukrinform/Rex/Shutterstock

Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine is not yet a war, but a 'special military operation'. Expected to take a week to mop up. The resistance of Ukraine and its military, led by the adamant courage of its president whose mettle is no longer in question as an actor-turned-president has taken Moscow by surprise and stalled the advance of the Russian military in its orders to 'liberate' Ukraine from its neo-Nazi government. 

 

When that assault, on the suburbs of Kyiv and associated later-discovered atrocities against civilians failed to materialize, the Russian battalions regrouped and dispatched themselves under orders to literally liberate Ukraine's eastern provinces from Ukrainian dominion, welcoming them as another Russian gift from a punished former satellite. The port city of Mariupol, critical to Vladimir Putin's plan to dominate the Black Sea, has been under direct fire from Russia since February 24. 

Under constant assault from an army with greater numbers of personnel than their own, with access to more materiel than Ukraine has at its disposal, the defenders of Mariupol have nonetheless, kept the invaders at bay. In this war of attrition, Russia has gradually assumed control of most of Mariupol, killing thousands of civilians in the process and utterly destroying the city, pounding it by bombs and artillery fire into rubble.

 

Ukrainian Army Lieutenant Ilya Semolienko: "My phone book is slowly turning into a collective obituary. Death is walking around everywhere. Does my life have value? No. The victory has value." He spoke from within the Mariupol Steel Plant. Photograph: USA Today

 

Yet the vast steelworks of the Azovstal plant's underground redoubts remain relatively intact underground, while the structure above lies in ruins. And in the sprawling underground network an estimated several hundred civilian residents of Mariupol still await rescue as one Russian attack after another is repelled by the military forces within. The Azov battalion troops vowed to fight on to the death. Their commander spoke of his soldiers' "superhuman efforts" in "difficult, bloody battles", spurred to ongoing defence.

Russian troops have now entered the maze of underground passageways prepared to overwhelm its defenders. Video of a female Ukrainian soldier in a dark bunker has emerged, singing songs known for their glorification of resistance fighters during the Second World War. "Be faithful to your Motherland until death. For us, Ukraine is above all", she sang.

"Our defenders are still there trying to protect this last piece of land in Mariupol", said Ukrainian MP Ivanna Klympush. The remaining resistance fighters need a "miracle" to survive the latest Russian onslaught, she stated, as Russia's defence ministry refuted having betrayed a ceasefire agreement to evacuate the remaining civilians still within the plant, forcing a rescue mission to be aborted.