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Civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol arrive at a temporary accommodation centre, with members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the UN in the village of Bezimenne, in the Donetsk Region, Ukraine on May 6, 2022.ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/Reuters

All women, children and elderly civilians have been evacuated from the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said on Saturday, despite what military officers said was an ongoing Russian assault at the plant.

“This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation is over,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The Soviet-era steel mill, the last holdout in Mariupol for Ukrainian forces, has emerged as a symbol of resistance to the wider Russian effort to capture swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine in the 10-week-old war.

Under heavy bombardment, fighters and civilians have been trapped for weeks in deep bunkers and tunnels that criss-cross the site, with little food, water or medicine.

Russian forces backed by tanks and artillery tried again on Saturday to storm Azovstal, Ukraine’s military command said, part of a ferocious assault to dislodge the last Ukrainian defenders in the strategic port city on the Azov Sea.

Weeks of Russian bombardment have left Mariupol in ruins and the steel mill has been largely destroyed. Several groups of civilians have left the sprawling complex over the past week during pauses in fighting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a late-night address that more than 300 civilians had been rescued from the plant. Authorities would now focus on evacuating the wounded and medics, and helping residents elsewhere in Mariupol and surrounding settlements to safety, he said.

Earlier on Saturday, Russia’s Interfax news agency cited Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk region as saying 50 more people had been evacuated from the besieged steelworks.

However, by 1600 GMT, Reuters journalists had not seen any sign of their arrival at a reception centre in separatist-controlled territory near Mariupol.

The separatists said a total of 176 civilians had now been evacuated from the plant.

Evacuations of civilians began last weekend from the Azovstal plant, brokered by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). They were halted during the week by renewed fighting.

Earlier this week, the city’s mayor estimated that 200 civilians were trapped at the plant.

It was not clear after the deputy prime minister’s statement on Saturday if civilian men were still in the complex.

The fighters have vowed not to surrender. It was unclear how many remained there, and Ukrainian officials fear Russian forces want to wipe them out by Monday, when Moscow commemorates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

In Washington, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns said Russian President Vladimir Putin is convinced “doubling down” on the conflict will improve the outcome for Russia, which Western officials say has so far failed in its war aims.

“He’s in a frame of mind in which he doesn’t believe he can afford to lose,” Burns said at a Financial Times event.

Putin declared victory in Mariupol on April 21, ordered the plant sealed off and called for Ukrainian forces inside to disarm. But Russia later resumed its assault on the plant.

Moscow calls its actions since Feb. 24 a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of what it calls anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West. Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war.

The World Health Organization said on Saturday in Kyiv it had documented 200 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine, the latest allegations of war crimes by Russian forces. Russia has denied attacking civilian targets.

Mariupol, which lies between the Crimea Peninsula seized by Moscow in 2014 and parts of eastern Ukraine taken by Russia-backed separatists that year, is key to linking up the two Russian-held territories and blocking Ukrainian exports.

Ukraine’s general staff said the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine aimed to establish full control over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and maintain the land corridor between these territories and Crimea.

Russian forces also shelled settlements in the northeast, near Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv. The attacks blew up three road bridges in order to slow down counter-offensive actions by the Ukrainian forces, the general staff said.

However, Russian forces lost control of the village of Tsyrkuny in Kharkiv region, the military command said.

Russia’s defence ministry said it destroyed a large stockpile of military equipment from the United States and European countries near the Bohodukhiv railway station in the Kharkiv region.

Russian forces hit 18 Ukrainian military facilities overnight, including three ammunition depots in Dachne, near the southern port city of Odesa, the ministry said.

Reuters could not independently verify either side’s statements about battlefield events.

Russia’s lower house of parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin accused Washington of coordinating military operations in Ukraine, which he said amounted to direct U.S. involvement in military action against Russia.

U.S. officials have said the United States has provided intelligence to Ukraine to help counter the Russian assault, but have denied this intelligence includes precise targeting data.

Since the start of the invasion, Washington and European members of the transatlantic NATO alliance have supplied Kyiv with heavy weapons to help it resist Russia, but say they will not take part in the fighting.

A senior Russian commander said last month Russia planned to take full control of southern Ukraine and this would improve Russian access to Transdniestria, a breakaway region of Moldova.

Pro-Russian separatists in Moldova said Transdniestria was hit four times by suspected drones overnight near the Ukrainian border.

Ukraine has repeatedly denied any blame for the incidents, saying it believes Russia is staging the attacks to provoke war. Moscow, too, has denied blame.

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