Ukrainian forces in the beseiged southern port of Mariupol are still fighting and intend to defy a Russian demand to surrender, officials have said.
“We will absolutely fight to the end, to the win, in this war,” Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal told ABC news on Sunday.
The shattered city is on the brink of falling to the Russians after seven weeks under seige. If it is captured it would give Moscow a crucial success after the sinking of its Black Sea flagship.
Meanwhile Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will not cede territory in the Russian-occupied Donbas region in any attempt to reach a peace agreement.
The Ukrainian president, speaking to CNN, said that doing so would leave open the possibility of Russia using the territory to launch another attack aimed at seizing Kyiv.
In the UK, The Independent can reveal that hundreds of millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money is being handed to companies that are continuing to operate in Russia.
