Some evacuated from Mariupol; US lawmaker Pelosi visits Kyiv

ZAPORIZHZHIA/MOSCOW: Some women and children have been evacuated from a steel plant that is the last defensive stronghold in the bombed out ruins of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, while U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Ukraine’s president in the country’s capital in a show of American support. Russia’s offensive in coastal southern Ukraine and the country’s eastern industrial heartland has Ukrainian forces fighting village by village and more civilians fleeing airstrikes and artillery shelling as the war reaches their doorsteps. Thousands of residents were believed to remain trapped with little food, water or medicine in blockaded Mariupol. The United Nations was working to broker an evacuation of as many as 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath a sprawling Soviet-era steel plant that is the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians. Footage released early Sunday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office showed Pelosi in Kyiv with a congressional delegation that included representatives Jason Crow, Jim McGovern, Gregory Meeks and Adam Schiff. The visit was not previously announced. “We believe that we are visiting you to say thank you for your fight for freedom,” said Pelosi, who is second in line to the U.S. presidency after the vice president and the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the war. “We are on a frontier of freedom and your fight is a fight for everyone. Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done,” Pelosi added. Pelosi’s office did not say when the meeting took place, but the light in the video and other details suggested the meeting took place Saturday. Members of Congress Barbara Lee and Bill Keating were also listed as being in the delegation, although it wasn’t clear if they were in Kyiv. The delegation was scheduled to hold a press conference in the Polish city of Rzeszow on Sunday. Russian forces have embarked on a major military operation to seize significant parts of southern and eastern Ukraine following their failure to capture the capital. Mariupol is a major target because of its strategic location near the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency said Saturday that 19 adults and six children were brought out from the Azovstal steelworks, but gave no further details. A top official with the Azov Regiment, the Ukrainian unit defending the plant, said 20 civilians were evacuated during a cease-fire, though it was not clear if he was referring to the same group. There was no confirmation from the U.N. “These are women and children,” Sviatoslav Palamar said in a video posted on the regiment’s Telegram channel. He also called for the evacuation of the wounded: “We don’t know why they are not taken away and their evacuation to the territory controlled by Ukraine is not being discussed.” Ukraine has blamed the failure of numerous previous evacuation attempts on continued.