An operation to evacuate civilians trapped in a steelworks in the southern city of Mariupol is under way, confirms UN. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed she visited Ukraine’s president to show unflinching American support for the country’s defense against Russian aggression.
Around 50 Ukrainian civilians reached the relative safety of a temporary camp in Russian-held territory on Sunday after being evacuated from a ruined steelworks in Mariupol.
As many as 100,000 people are believed to still be in blockaded Mariupol, including up to 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Soviet-era steel plant — the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians.
Pelosi, a California Democrat, second in line to succeed the president, is the most senior American lawmaker to travel to Ukraine since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
In this image released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Sunday, May 1, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, awards the Order of Princess Olga, the third grade, to U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in Kyiv, Ukraine
During a news conference in the Polish city of Rzeszow on Sunday, Pelosi said she and other members of a U.S. congressional delegation met with the Ukrainian President in Kyiv, for three hours and brought him “a message of appreciation from the American people for his leadership.”
Fire at Russian military site, Russia claims of striking western arms depot
A fire broke out on Sunday at a Russian military site in Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.
“A fire has occurred on the territory of one of the sites belonging to the Defense Ministry,” the governor wrote on social media. He added that officials were determining the damage and if there were any casualties. Gladkov later added that a civilian was lightly injured.
Photos and videos posted on social media shows a large cloud of smoke in the area.
Moscow had repeatedly accused Ukraine of cross-border shelling which Ukraine has not taken responsibility of so far.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it struck a storage of foreign weapons at a military airfield near the Black Sea port of Odessa in Ukraine.
Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov told a daily press briefing, “Russian supersonic Oniks missiles destroyed a hangar with “weapons and ammunition received from the US and European states”
-AP/Reuters/RT