Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his people they should be proud of surviving 50 days under Russian invasion when the invading forces “gave us a maximum of five”.
In his late-night video address on Thursday, Mr Zelensky called it “an achievement of millions of Ukrainians, of everyone who on Feb. 24 made the most important decision of their life – to fight”.
Mr Zelensky gave an extensive listing of the many ways in which Ukrainians have helped to fend off the Russian troops, including “those who showed that Russian warships can sail away, even if it’s to the bottom” of the sea.
It was his only reference to the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, which sank while being towed to port. Ukrainian officials said they had struck it with Neptune anti-shp missiles.
Mr Zelensky recalled the first day of the invasion when many world leaders, unsure whether Ukraine could survive, advised him to leave the country.
“But they didn’t know how brave Ukrainians are, how much we value freedom and the possibility to live the way we want,” Mr Zelensky said.
It came as outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces holed up in the steel making district of besieged Mariupol as Russia tries to take full control of its biggest city yet.
The Azovstal iron and steel works, one of Europe’s biggest metallurgical plants, has become a final stand for Ukrainian forces who remain surrounded seven weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The Azovstal factory is an enormous space with so many buildings that the Russians ... simply can’t find (the Ukrainian forces),” said Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst based in Kyiv.
“That’s why they (the Russians) started talking about trying a chemical attack, that’s the only way to smoke them out,” Zhdanov said.
The family of a British fighter captured in Mariupol spoke of horror after photos emerged of him appearing to have suffered injuries at the hands of his Russian captors.
Aiden Aslin, from Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, was shown in a photo with injuries to his face and hands in handcuffs.
The fighter, who joined Ukraine’s military in 2018, posted to his Twitter account on April 12 that his unit had “no food or ammunition” left and they were being forced to surrender.
His brother Nathan Wood, 25, told MailOnline it was “shocking” to see Aiden in such a state.
“What have the Russians done to him? He looks awful, absolutely exhausted. His face is drained of colour. How has he got such a big red mark on his forehead? That looks like he’s been hit with a rifle butt.
