rubble underneath the plant. listen. translator: all last night barrel artillery work on the territory of the plant, which caused the destructions and new rubble blockages. as of now, a special rescue operation is being carried out by the azov regiment. we get civilians out of the rubble with ropes. it is the elderly, women and children. we hope this process will continue and we will be able to evacuate all the civilians. reporter: now what is not clear is that if anyone else is being allowed to leave beyond that initial group. yesterday, the mariupol mayor s office said people were being allowed to move from neighborhoods on the east side of the river where the plant is to neighborhoods on the west where they could potentially link up with an evacuation corridor set to go further into ukrainian territory. it wasn t clear whether that included people from the plant itself. just today, russian media is reporting that some 46 people from a residential area next to the plant were able
to the ukrainian troops who say they ll fight to the bitter end? we know about 600 or so or injured from the last time we heard from the people inside that steel plant. earlier i spoke about that with a military expert who slammed what russia is doing in mariupol. have a listen. make no mistake if russians wanted those civilians out, they would make the order and get every single civilian out. by the way, the wounded shoulders, those are considered non-combatant in an armed conflict. they re not fighters and need to get out as well. in the meantime, john, what we have been seeing in the batfield is russia really pressing on with its offensive in the east and intensifying i think it s important to point out intensifying that. they are somewhat a bit
but we don t know whether they were evacuated toward russian held territory or if they were allowed to go deeper into ukraine. and here s one other problem, is that even if this latest effort succeeds in evacuating, some or maybe even all of the civilians from underneath of that plant, it still leaves potentially hundreds of wounded soldiers there. and right now there are no signs, no indications that the russians are going to let them leave. all right, scott mclean, thank you for your reporting as usual. joining me now is mark fallon, a former deputy assistant director for counterterrorism with the naval criminal investigative service and author of the unjustifiable means, the inside story of how the cia, pentagon and u.s. government conspired to torture. so nice to see you, mark, great to have you on this morning. wa i want to start with mariupol. how confident are you that investigators can effectively gather any evidence of possible war crimes, the place is in
mayor s office says it is in radio silence mode about this evacuation effort which at last word appears to still be ongoing. yesterday, a cease-fire agreement between the russians and the ukrainians seemed to be holding, which is pretty remarkable because the day before on friday the russians were storming that steel plant facility from the ground, rather than just their usual bombing campaign from the sky. now, that relentless bombing of the plant, sprawling steel plant, meant that according to the soldiers hiding under ground there, some of the cellars, bunkers underground had collapsed and some people were trapped beneath the rubble. and there was an ongoing effort to try to get those people out. yesterday there was a glimmer of hope when both the russian media and the soldiers underneath that plant confirmed that 20, maybe 25 people were able to evacuate from the plant itself. according to a ukrainian deputy commander of the regiment fighting from that area, those people were pulle
regiment deputy commander now says about 20 women and children rescued under that rubble have also been taken out of the plant made possible by a cease-fire the commander says and an evacuation convoy which arrived in the city in the early evening. russian media reported there were 25 civilians evacuated including six kids. after back-to-back meetings in moskow and kyiv by the u.n. secretary-general the united nations stepped up negotiations to evacuate the civilians trapped under the steel plant. translator: we are doing everything to ensure the evacuation mission from mariupol is carried out. reporter: by saturday afternoon the mariupol mayor s office reported the russians were allowing civilians to leave neighborhoods east of the river and cross to the west side to potentially meet up on an evacuation corridor on the mall at the edge of the city.