Ukrainian forces fight to hold off Russia's offensive in Ukraine's south and east
CBSN
Ukraine's forces fought Saturday to hold off a Russian advance in their country's south and east, where the Kremlin is seeking to capture the industrial Donbas region and Western military analysts said Moscow's offensive was going much slower than planned. The United Nations continued trying to broker an evacuation of civilians from the increasingly hellish ruins of Mariupol, a southern port city that Russia has sought to capture since it invaded Ukraine more than nine weeks ago.
Citizens are "begging to get saved" from a steel mill that has become Mariupol's last defense stronghold, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said Friday. "There, it's not a matter of days. It's a matter of hours." An estimated 2,000 fighters were holed up in the plant with about 1,000 civilians.
After two months of hellish resistance, video footage showed border guards singing the Ukrainian national anthem, barricaded inside the mill, CBS News foreign correspondent Chris Livesay reports. They're propped up by the love of their wives, now refugees in Rome, like Yulya, who has no hope in Russian promises for a safe evacuation.
