Hundreds of Ukrainian troops who were defending the Azovstal steel plant surrendered to Russian forces. They are now facing an uncertain fate as the battle in Mariupol nears its end.
Leaning on his nuclear capability to message the west to stay out of ukraine. the u.s. and its allies are reresponding by sending more weapons. neil? neil: thanks, jennifer griffin. jennifer at the pentagon. we can tell you this battle in mariupol where the russians say it s over, they have complete control. you might have heard president biden convinced that is not the case. we know that 2,000 ukrainians are holed up in this essentially a steel plant that is being used right now as sort of their only defense against the russian onslaught. it s very hard to penetrate that. vladimir putin has made it such that it s very hard to leave there as he was putting it, not so much a fly could get in with the tight grip that they have on this facility. how do the soldiers get out? vladimir putin said you should surrender. there s others in there, a number of civilians as well to say nothing of thousands of more
And part of that is because they want to live to fight another day. but all the signs are that mariupol may fall to the russians in the next coming days. and that would be a significant blow to the ukrainians and a big victory for putin to sell to his domestic audiences. all right. ali arouzi in lviv, thank you. and i want to turn to jason beardsley now. so jason, ali kind of set you up there talking about the humanitarian implications about the battle in mariupol. but what about the strategic implications? why is that city the linchpin right now in this war? well, honestly, it s not quite a linchpin in a strategical battlefield sense. economically it s valuable long term, but that requires some stability. it s a port city. so it doesn t have deep penetration into the countryside. for russia. this is a city that s close to the border with russia and can be easily supplied from crimea. so for all that russia has spent to defeat the city, to topple
Sim alec and strategically important city for both of them. russia and ukraine both desperately want mariupol. it looks like this battle might not have too long to go. most people acknowledge that russia have the upper hand there, but until we know for sure, we keep watching what is a vital battle in mariupol. a massive queue of trucks has formed on the poland belarus border, as russian and belarussian drivers rushed to leave the eu following a sanctions deadline on saturday. some drivers were stuck for up to 33 hours, after the eu banned lorries from the two countries from entering or staying in the bloc, except those carrying medicine, mail or petroleum products. here in the uk, the archbishop of canterbury has strongly criticised the government s plan to send some people who ve arrived illegally in the uk to rwanda. in his easter sermon, justin welby said it posed serious ethical questions, and was the opposite of the nature of god .
Would let them live. they would treat them as they should under the geneva convention. but that window came and went, and what we heard from ukraine was that their fighters were still there and continue to fight and will do until the end. this is a hugely sim alec and strategically important city for both of them. russia and ukraine both desperately want mariupol. it looks like this battle might not have too long to go. most people acknowledge that russia have the upper hand there, but until we know for sure, we keep watching what is a vital battle in mariupol. president zelensky has said again today, he has talked about the idea of giving up territory, those areas that we know russia is fighting for in the east, rather donbas, places like the hanson and don s, presidents lenski has that is not willing willing to give up any of that territory to the russians. he also said as well that if those remaining fighters in mariupol were killed, then that would mean an end to peace talks as