Ukraine: Mariupol on verge of falling as fighters leave steel plant

Ukrainian servicemen after being evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant (Alexei Alexandrov/AP)

Mariupol appeared on the verge of falling to the Russians on Tuesday as Ukraine moved to abandon the steel plant where hundreds of its fighters had held out for months under relentless bombardment in the last bastion of resistance in the devastated city.

The capture of Mariupol would make it the biggest city to be taken by Moscow’s forces in the war yet and would give the Kremlin a badly needed victory, though the landscape has largely been reduced to rubble.