A senior Ukrainian official has said that a new attempt is under way "at the moment" to evacuate civilians trapped with Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks.
Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential staff, gave no details about the progress of the rescue effort but said an update would be given later.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the UN's Security Council yesterday "the next stage of rescuing our people from Azovstal is under way".
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said evacuations out of Mariupol on Friday would focus on those still stuck inside the Azovstal steel works.
"Today we will concentrate precisely on Azovstal," she told the AFP news agency by phone.
"The operation is starting. We are praying for its success."
On Thursday, Vereshchuk said the evacuation would take place from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, and that residents should gather on Friday at 12:00 local time near the city's Port City shopping centre, without giving further details.
Ukraine has said almost 500 civilians have been evacuated from the south-eastern city of Mariupol since a UN-led rescue operation began, including some people from the besieged Azovstal steel plant.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president's office, called the evacuation "a complex operation" and said Ukraine will continue to do everything to "save all civilians and the military".
He thanked the UN for its help on Telegram.
Meanwhile, the AP reported that Ukrainian fighters battling Russian forces in the tunnels beneath Mariupol’s immense steel plant refused to surrender in the face of relentless attacks, with the wife of one commander saying they had vowed to “stand till the end.”
The fight in the last Ukrainian stronghold of the strategic port city reduced to ruins by the Russian onslaught appeared increasingly desperate amid growing speculation that President Vladimir Putin wants to present the Russian people with a battlefield triumph — or announce an escalation of the war — in time for Victory Day on Monday.
“They won’t surrender,” Kateryna Prokopenko said Thursday after speaking by phone to her husband, a leader of the steel plant defenders. “They only hope for a miracle.”
She said her husband, Azov Regiment commander Denys Prokopenko, told her he would love her forever. “I am going mad from this. It seemed like words of goodbye,” she said.
Ukraine said Russia was continuing to shell the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol where at least 200 civilians were sheltered with the last of the city's defenders. The Ukraine military said Russian troops were attacking the plant to try and take control of it.
