More civilians have been rescued from the tunnels under a besieged steel plant in Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said Friday. “We conducted another stage of a complex operation to evacuate people from Mariupol and Azovstal. I can say that we managed to take out almost 500 civilians,” the head of Ukraine‘s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said.
Meanwhile, Russia on 24th February launched its invasion of Ukraine. And, according to the latest updates, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, demanded that Ukraine order its fighters holed up in Azovstal to surrender, the Kremlin said. In a call with Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, Putin claimed Russia was still ready to provide safe passage for civilians from the plant, according to the Kremlin. However, the UK government has placed sanctions on Evraz, the multinational steelmaker part-owned by the billionaire Roman Abramovich. The company was formerly counted among Britain’s biggest companies. The Foreign Office said on Thursday that the action would “further chip away at Putin’s financial reserves and siege economy, and support Ukraine’s continued resistance”. Also, a $300 million yacht belonging to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov has been seized by Fijian authorities at the request of the United States Department of Justice.