Russian forces stormed a sprawling steel plant in the besieged port city of Mariupol on Tuesday, Ukrainian officers said, while a convoy carrying dozens of civilians evacuated from the facility over the weekend arrived in the relative safety of a Ukrainian-controlled city. Putin put the West on notice on Tuesday that he could terminate exports and deals.
Osnat Lubrani, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine said in a statement that, thanks to the evacuation effort, “101 women, men, children, and older persons could finally leave the bunkers below the Azovstal steelworks and see the daylight after two months.”
The deputy commander of the Azov Regiment holed up in the plant told The Associated Press that Russian forces were storming the facility, which includes a warren of underground tunnels and bunkers. Another Ukrainian officer confirmed the assault on Ukrainian television.
Mariupol has come to symbolize the human misery inflicted by the war. A Russian siege has trapped civilians with little access to food, water and electricity, as Moscow’s forces pounded the city to rubble.
Putin’s response to sanctions
Putin, Russia's paramount leader since 1999, signed a broad decree on Tuesday which forbade the export of products and raw materials to people and entities on a sanctions list that he instructed the government to draw up within 10 days.
The decree, which came into force with its publication, gives Moscow the power to raise chaos across markets as it could at any moment halt exports or tear up contracts with an entity or individual it has previously sanctioned.
Putin explicitly framed the decree as a response to what he cast as the illegal actions of the United States and its allies meant to deprive "the Russian Federation, citizens of the Russian Federation and Russian legal entities of property rights or the restricting their property rights".
The West's attempt to economically isolate Russia, one of the world's biggest producers of natural resources, has propelled the global economy into uncharted waters with soaring prices and warnings of food shortages.
Tuesday's decree forbids the export of products and raw materials to people and entities that the Kremlin has sanctioned. It forbids any transactions with such people or entities - even under current contracts.
-Reuters/AP