The attacks on the Azovstal plant do not stop. The Ukrainian authorities have denounced this Wednesday a new Russian offensive against the Mariúpol steelworks, which is once again on fire. According to the authorities, there are no civilians left at the plant, but the military, most of them members of the Azov battalion, are still resisting.
With the long confinement, nationalist feelings have emerged and it is the soldiers themselves who are encouraged by singing. In fact, in a recent video published by one of the soldiers who is in the steel mill and which has gone viral, a combatant can be heard singing what she has dubbed the Ukrainian ‘Bella Ciao’.
“A wounded rebel who lies at the foot of the green oak in the thick of the forest.
Ukraine is our mother and Stepan Bandera is our father,” the song reads. According to the international press, the one singing is Kateryna, a 21-year-old student who enlisted to fight for her country when the war broke out.
Petro Andriushchenko, advisor to the mayor of Mariúpol, has assured that “if there is a hell on earth, it is there (at the Azovstal plant). We are all indebted to the defenders of Mariupol.”
The assault on the Azovstal plant began on May 3 and is still “being attacked not only from the sky and with artillery, but also with tanks and Russia is trying to break through with troops,” says Andriushchenko.
The wives of the soldiers of the battalion that is in the labyrinths of the steel mill have come to the Vatican to ask Pope Francis for help.
“We have asked the pontiff for help, to act as a third party in this war and to intervene so that they can leave through a humanitarian corridor. He told us that he prays for us and that he is going to do everything he can », they have pointed out according to AFP reports.
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