蜜芽传媒

With Russian forces intensifying their offensive in eastern Ukraine, they claim to have now hit more than a thousand targets. They're focusing their firepower on the Donetsk and Luhansk region, known collectively as the Donbass.

And it's in the strategic port city of Mariupol, on the edge of the Donbass, that Russian forces have been trying to storm an industrial complex where the city's last remaining defenders have been holding out, alongside hundreds of civilians.

While the Russians have repeatedly called on them to surrender, the deputy mayor of Mariupol, Sergei Orlov, told Newsday fighting continues.

鈥淭he Ukrainian army control鈥� 25 percent of our city, mostly southern industrial district. We continue to defeat Russian [forces] while Russia continues to destroy civilian infrastructure - it continues day-by-day, hour-by-hour."

"I can confirm there are a lot of civilians there, [using it] as a bomb shelter. They have a lack of everything, but [Russia's President] Putin blocks everything.鈥�

(Pic: The Azovstal Iron and Steel Works company plant in Mariupol; Credit: Reuters)

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