Heavy fighting sees Russian troops move closer to capturing crucial port

People walk past a shell crater in the city of Mariupol which is in danger of falling to Russian forces (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Russian forces pushed deeper into Ukraine’s besieged and battered port city of Mariupol on Saturday, where heavy fighting shut down a major steel plant and local authorities pleaded for more Western help.

The fall of Mariupol, the scene of some of the war’s worst suffering, would mark a major battlefield advance for the Russians, who are largely bogged down outside major cities more than three weeks into the biggest land invasion in Europe since the Second World War.