Ukraine says it’s launching a mission to extract civilians from the Mariupol steel plant currently surrounded by Russian forces

• Ukraine said it will try and evacuate civilians from the surrounded Azovstal steel plant on Friday.
• Russia seized Mariupol on April 21, trapping hundreds of Ukrainian troops and civilians in the plant.
• Putin agreed in principle to a UN-led evacuation mission earlier this week.

Ukraine said it will attempt on Friday to extract civilians from the Azovstal steel plant besieged by Russian forces in Mariupol.

“An operation is planned today to get civilians out of the plant,” the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday, according to Reuters, without giving ay further details. 

Russia said it had seized total control of Mariupol, a critical port city on the Sea of Azov, on April 21.

But it acknowledged that several hundred Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were trapped in the underground basement network of a steel plant. Ukrainian officials have said the civilians there are mostly women and children, and that they were running out of food and supplies.

Major Serhiy Volyna, the commander of the Ukrainian troops in the plant, told Insider last week that surrender was not an option. “We’re not even considering that possibility,” he said. “We won’t lay down our weapons.”

The UN said on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin had agreed “in principle” to an evacuation attempt from Azovstal led by the UN and International Committee for the Red Cross.

Zelenskyy said in an address late Thursday that the mission will succeed if Russia holds up its end of the bargain.

“I believe that with the help of the UN it is possible to organize an evacuation mission. Ukraine is ready for these steps,” he said. “But it is also necessary for the Russian side to consider this issue without cynicism and actually do what it says.”

Ukraine has previously said that efforts to establish humanitarian corridors out of Mariupol were ruined by Russian action. 

Zelenskyy went on to say that Russia is still bombing Mariupol, where tens of thousands of civilians still reside, despite claims it has stopped.

“This is a war crime committed by the Russian military literally in front of the whole world,” he said.