Russia has offered to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the key port city of Mariupol - but only if they lay down their arms on Sunday.
The Russian government said Ukrainian soldiers and “foreign mercenaries” still fighting in Mariupol, which Russia says it has nearly taken control of, could lay down their weapons between 06:00 and 13:00 Moscow time and their safety would be guaranteed.
Those doing so would be treated in line with the Geneva convention on prisoners of war, it said.
The statement did not say what would happen to any soldiers who refused to stop fighting - and said the offer was being made on "purely humane principles".
Russia says the only remaining Ukrainian troops in the city are contained in a small area around the Azovstal steelworks area.
The statement said Russian forces would "continuously broadcast" details of the offer to the soldiers still at Azovstal every 30 minutes throughout the night.
It also encouraged the troops not to wait for permission to surrender from Kyiv, but to make the decision themselves.
Russia's Defence Ministry said its troops had cleared the urban area of Mariupol and only a small contingent of Ukrainian fighters remained inside a steelworks in the city on Saturday.
Moscow's claim to have all but taken control of Mariupol, scene of the war's heaviest fighting and worst humanitarian catastrophe, could not be independently verified. It would be the first major city to have fallen to Russian forces since the Feb. 24 invasion.
"Taking into account the catastrophic situation that has developed at the Azovstal metallurgical plant, as well as being guided by purely humane principles, the Russian Armed Forces offer the militants of nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries from 06:00 (Moscow time) on April 17, 2022, to stop any hostilities and lay down their arms," the defence ministry said in a statement.
"All who lay down their arms are guaranteed that their lives will be spared," it said, adding that the defenders could leave the plant by 10 a.m. without arms or ammunition.
There was no immediate response from Kyiv.
"The situation is very difficult" in Mariupol, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the Ukrainska Pravda news portal. "Our soldiers are blocked, the wounded are blocked. There is a humanitarian crisis... Nevertheless, the guys are defending themselves."
Meanwhile, Russian forces renewed missile strikes on Kyiv and intensified shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in an apparent strategy to hobble Ukraine’s defenses in preparation for what is expected to be a full-scale Russian assault in the east.
These attacks and others scattered across the country were an explosive reminder to Ukrainians and their Western supporters that the whole country remains under threat.
With the port city of Mariupol under siege, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia “is deliberately trying to destroy everyone who is there.” He said Ukraine needs more heavy weapons from the West immediately to have any chance of saving the city.
Zelenskyy said in an interview with Ukrainian journalists that the continuing siege of Mariupol, which has come at a horrific cost to trapped and starving civilians, could scuttle attempts to negotiate an end to the war.
“The destruction of all our guys in Mariupol — what they are doing now — can put an end to any format of negotiations,” he said.
Later, in his nightly video address to the nation, Zelenskyy said Ukraine needs more support from the West to have a chance at saving Mariupol.
“Either our partners give Ukraine all of the necessary heavy weapons, the planes, and without exaggeration immediately, so we can reduce the pressure of the occupiers on Mariupol and break the blockade,” he said, “or we do so through negotiations, in which the role of our partners should be decisive.”
Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, said Saturday that Ukrainian forces had been driven out of most of the city and remained only in the huge Azovstal steel mill.
Russian Maj. Gen. Vladimir Frolov, whose troops have been among those besieging Mariupol, was buried Saturday in St. Petersburg after dying in battle, Gov. Alexander Beglov said. Ukraine has said several Russian generals and dozens of other high-ranking officers have been killed in the war.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russian forces in the south, which came up through the annexed Crimean Peninsula, to fully link up with troops in the Donbas region, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
(with inputs from AP)
