UKRAINE’S die-hard defenders last night vowed never to surrender — even as Vladimir Putin’s war machine unleashed fresh fury.
An Easter deadline to disarm passed in the besieged port city of Mariupol, where fighters are holed up in a steelwork’s network of tunnels and bunkers.
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Callous Kremlin chiefs threatened: “In case of further resistance, all of them will be eliminated.”
But Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned peace talks would be over if the soldiers were annihilated.
And his Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal proudly declared: “The city still has not fallen — there is still our military forces, our soldiers. We have no intention to surrender. They will fight to the end.”
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said Mariupol was now a “shield defending Ukraine”.
The sprawling Avostal steel plant is the only place in the city still holding out against Russian forces.
Putin stooges called for chemical weapons to “smoke out” its defenders, including troops from the Azov Battalion and the 36th Marines.
Meanwhile in the city of Kharkiv, 25 miles from the Russian border, Putin’s forces launched a deadly “double tap” rocket blitz. At least five people were killed and 13 wounded using the merciless tactic aimed at wiping out first responders.
Emergency teams who raced to the scene of one blast were forced to dive for cover as a second barrage of Grad rockets smashed into the street around them.
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The Sun watched a medic bravely use his body as a shield to protect a woman as he shouted at others to take cover. At least one rocket tore through a nearby covered food market, setting it ablaze.
Kharkiv, which repelled a tank assault on the first day of the war, has faced a non-stop Russian bombardment ever since.
More than 300 people have died, including at least 100 soldiers and 192 civilians. Another 964 civilians and 513 soldiers were wounded, a health official said.
In Dnipro, hospital staff continued to treat child victims of the Russian cluster bomb attack on Kramatorsk rail station, which left scores dead as families tried to flee the city.
In eastern Ukraine, now being targeted after Russian troops were forced to retreat elsewhere, Lysychansk Oil Refinery was ablaze after a missile strike.
A Ukrainian serviceman surveyed a crater which was all that was left of a home in the village of Yatskivka, while an elderly woman picked her way through the ruins of the city of Trostianets.
Russia ramped up its attacks on Friday with rocket and cruise missile strikes after Ukraine sank its Black Sea flagship Mosckva 60 miles off the coast.
Russian state TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov, a top Putin mouthpiece sanctioned by the west over links to the tyrant, ranted: “I am furious about what happened to the Moskva.
“It was quite old, and went through repairs and, yes, this series of ships has vulnerabilities.
“I get it. But tell me this — how did you manage to lose it?” Why the hell you were in that particular area of the Black Sea, at that time?”
His outburst was seen as a signal of Mad Vlad’s private anger.
BLOODY REVENGE
Ukraine said the ship was hit with a volley of its Neptune missiles, while Moscow claimed it sank in a storm after a fire in ammunition bay.
Vice Admiral Igor Osipov, commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, has not been seen since amid claims he has been violently detained.
Russia wreaked a bloody revenge on Saturday by targeting Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv with cruise missiles.
British defence intelligence agreed that Russia’s “operational focus has shifted to eastern Ukraine”.
It said Moscow building up forces near Kharkiv and Severdonetsk further east.
But it warned: “Russia’s ultimate objective remains the same” — which is bringing the country under its heel.
Yesterday Pope Francis used his Easter address to blast Russia for a “cruel and senseless” bloodbath. He told the faithful gathering in St Peter’s Square: “May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged.”
And in a clear reference to nuclear weapons he quoted Albert Einstein who warned the world faced a choice: “Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war?
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