The siege of Russian troops Mariupol is increasingly tight and this Saturday the fighting between the invading forces and the resistance reached right into the center of the Ukrainian port city.

“Our forces are doing everything they can to maintain their positions in the city, but the enemy’s forces are bigger than ours, unfortunately,” Vadim Boichenko, mayor of Mariupol, told the BBC.

“There are bombings from tanks (…) and artillery, and all kinds of weapons being fired”, he described.

The outbreak of fighting in the center of the city – one of the worst hits by Russian attacks in the whole of Ukraine and where the humanitarian situation is dramatic – is preventing the escape of civilians to safety and hampering the rescue work of people who were in the theater that sheltered hundreds of civilians and was bombed by the invading forces.

From a strategic point of view, taking Mariupol is seen as fundamental for Russia, since, in addition to depriving the Ukrainian Army of access to the Sea of ​​Azov, it would give Russian soldiers and tanks a long corridor along the from the southern coast of Ukraine, which would facilitate the redeployment and deployment of troops from the breakaway eastern regions and annexed Crimea.

Source: With Agencies