Ukrainians fight on in Mariupol steel plant

KYIV, Apr 18 (AP/BBC/AFP): Braced for an all-out Russian assault in the east, Ukraine vowed to "fight absolutely to the end" in strategically vital Mariupol, where the ruined port city's last known pocket of resistance was holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels.
With missiles and rockets also battering other parts of the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian soldiers of carrying out torture and kidnappings in areas they control.
The fall of Mariupol, which has been reduced to rubble in a seven-week siege, would give Moscow its biggest victory of the war. But a few thousand fighters, by Russia's estimate, hold on to the giant, 11-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) Azovstal steel mill.
"We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war," Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed Sunday on ABC's "This Week." He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible, "but we do not have intention to surrender."
Many Mariupol civilians, including children, are also sheltering at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, head of the city's patrol police, told Mariupol television. He said they are hiding from Russian shelling, and from any occupying Russian soldiers.
Capturing the city on the Sea of Azov would free up Russian troops for the expected new offensive to take control of the Donbas, in Ukraine's industrial east.
40 sailors died in Russian
warship sinking
Some 40 sailors were killed, several are missing and many more were wounded in the sinking of the warship Moskva, the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe reports quoting the mother of a sailor believed to be on board.
The mother said her son told her in a phone call that the Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, had been hit by three missiles from land, from Ukrainian territory.
"He called me and was crying because of what he had seen. It was terrifying," she said, adding that she herself was terrified of having to wait for him to finish his service.
Detained Putin ally calls
for prisoner swap
Ukrainian security services on Monday published a video showing Viktor Medvedchuk, a detained pro-Russia Ukrainian tycoon and politician, calling to be exchanged for Ukrainian forces fighting in the besieged port city of Mariupol.
"I want to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to exchange me for Ukrainian defenders and residents of Mariupol," he said in the video, wearing black clothes and looking directly into the camera.