(NewsNation) — People could be seen side-stepping rubble and debris on the streets, in drone footage from Reuters, of Mariupol on Friday as the Russian defense ministry claimed the strategically-important Ukrainian city had “returned to normal”.
Russia’s claim Mariupol has “returned to normal” comes after Russian forces tried to storm a steel plant in the city where Ukrainian forces and civilians were located.
The reported assault on the steel plant on the eve of Orthodox Easter came after the Kremlin claimed its military had seized all of the shattered city except for the Azovstal plant, and as Russian forces pounded other cities and towns in southern and eastern Ukraine.
The fate of the Ukrainians in the sprawling and besieged seaside steel mill in Mariupol wasn’t immediately clear; earlier Saturday, a Ukrainian military unit released a video reportedly taken two days earlier in which women and children holed up underground, some for as long as two months, said they longed to see the sun.
The few people braving the streets passed debris, including burnt-out tanks, which litter significant swathes of the city.
The mayor of Mariupol appealed on Friday for the “full evacuation” of the city, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said is now under Russian control.
“We need only one thing – the full evacuation of the population. About 100,000 people remain in Mariupol,” mayor Vadym Boichenko said on national television.
Boichenko, who is no longer in Mariupol, did not provide any update on fighting in or around the port city on the Sea of Azov.
The mayor told Reuters on Thursday that Putin alone could decide the fate of the civilians still trapped in the city, scene of the worst humanitarian crisis of the war in Ukraine that began on February 24.
Members of Ukraine’s Azov Battalion – holed up in the vast Azovstal steelworks on Friday – have refused offers from Russia to surrender.
Putin said on Thursday that Russian troops had “liberated” Mariupol, which would make it the biggest city to fall into Russian hands since the start of what Moscow calls a “special military operation”.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.