Attack on Azovstal; Ukrainians to "endure to the end"; Russians suffer heavy losses

Attack on Azovstal; Ukrainians to "endure to the end"; Russians suffer heavy losses

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has destroyed hundreds of hospitals and other institutions, left doctors without drugs to fight cancer and made operations impossible, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"If you take into account only the medical infrastructure, to date, Russian troops have destroyed or damaged almost 400 health institutions: hospitals, maternity hospitals, clinics," Zelensky said in a video address to the charity group for medical assistance, Reuters reports.

Ukrainian President added that even basic antibiotics are missing in many places, especially in eastern and southern Ukraine, where the focus of the fighting is.

He stated that the situation in the areas occupied by Russian forces is catastrophic and that there is a lack of medicines for patients suffering from cancer, insulin for diabetics and that it is impossible to perform medical operations, according to the British agency.

Russian army

Attack on Azovstal

Ukrainians successful in resistance

Ukrainian fighters resisting Russian forces in tunnels under the Mariupol steel plant are refusing to surrender despite fierce Russian attacks, Sky News reports, adding that fighting at the last stronghold of Ukrainian troops in the devastated city is intensifying.

"They will not surrender. They hope for a miracle," Katarina Prokopenko, the wife of Azov commander Denys Prokopenko, who is in Azovstal, told Sky News by phone. She says she spoke to him on the phone.

500 people evacuated

Almost 500 people were evacuated from the joint operation of the UN and the Red Cross from Azovstal, Mariupol and surrounding areas, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced on Twitter. The evacuation was carried out by two humanitarian convoys, he said.

Russians experience problems with seizing Donbass

Russian forces are failing to achieve the kind of strategic breakthrough they planned in Ukraine's eastern region of Donbas, said Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology in the Military Sciences team at RUSI.

"Russia continues to conquer a few kilometers of territory in some areas, but their forces are suffering very heavy losses and it is possible that they are stuck," Bronk, an analyst at the British security think tank RUSI, told the BBC.