KYIV: Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said diplomatic efforts were under way to save the remaining fighters holed up inside the Azovstal steelworks in the city of Mariupol, as more civilians were evacuated from the bombed-out plant.
The defenders have vowed not to surrender. Ukrainian officials fears Russian forces want to wipe them out by Monday in time for Moscow's commemorations of the former Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.
Ukraine said 50 civilians were evacuated on Friday, accusing Russia of violating a truce intended to allow dozens more still trapped underground to depart after weeks under siege.
Mariupol has endured the most destructive bombardment of the 10-week-old war, and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal plant is the last part of the city - a strategic southern port on the Azov Sea - still in the hands of Ukrainian fighters.
Zelenskyy said in a late-night video address that Ukraine was working on a diplomatic effort to save defenders barricaded inside the steelworks. It was unclear how many Ukrainian fighters remained in the steelworks.
"Influential intermediaries are involved, influential states," he said, but provided no further details.
United Nations-brokered evacuations began last weekend of some of the hundreds of civilians who had taken shelter in a network of tunnels and bunkers beneath the plant. But they were halted during the week by renewed fighting.