Russia announced that its forces would halt shelling the Azovstal steelworks in the city of Mariupol and starting on Thursday they would made a humanitarian corridor available for three days to allow for the evacuation of the civilians who had taken refuge in the plant together with the last Ukrainian soldiers. Earlier the city mayor Vadim Boicenko had said that fierce heavy fighting was taking place around the plant, which was being shelled by the Russian troops with all kind of ordnance. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres to intervene for the evacuation of the wounded in Azovstal. He earlier announced that 344 people had been evacuated from Mariupol and its surroundings. Russia on Wednesday said its forces had practiced simulated nuclear-capable missile strikes in the western enclave of Kaliningrad, amid Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.
