INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mariupol could fall into Russian hands within "hours," a Ukrainian official said, as the enemies agreed Wednesday to a humanitarian corridor
for civilians to flee the devastated port city following a two-month siege.As fighting raged in the country's east and south, the
president of the European Council Charles Michel arrived in Kyiv, where he vowed the EU would do "everything possible" to help Ukraine win
continues to pour weapons into Ukraine amid a renewed Russian push into the eastern Donbas region where a new offensive launched this week
has led to an uptick in fighting.Hours ahead of Michel's arrival, the Pentagon said that Ukraine had recently received fighter planes and
saying they had only received spare parts to help replenish their existing fleet and had not been given additional aircraft.The announcement
came as the battle for Mariupol appeared to be nearing a crucial tipping point, after nearly two months of devastating fighting that has
seen untold numbers of civilians trapped and killed.Control of Mariupol and the separatist-controlled Donbas region in the east would allow
Moscow to create a southern corridor to the Crimean Peninsula that it annexed in 2014, depriving Ukraine of much of its coastline.In the
latest ultimatum issued in its battle to capture Mariupol, Moscow made another call for the city's defenders to surrender on Wednesday by
Moscow time (11:00 GMT) and announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor for any Ukrainian troops who agreed to lay down their arms.As
the deadline approached, a commander in the besieged Azovstal steel plant issued a desperate plea for help, saying his marines were "maybe
facing our last days, if not hours.""The enemy is outnumbering us 10 to one," Serhiy Volyna from the 36th Separate Marine Brigade said."We
appeal and plead to all world leaders to help us
We ask them to use the procedure of extraction and take us to the territory of a third-party state."Thousands of troops and civilians remain
holed up in the plant.An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol described a "horrible situation" in the encircled complex and reported that up to
commander in the nationalist Azov battalion defending Mariupol, said the Russian attack on the sprawling steel complex was
had agreed with Russian forces to open a safe route for civilians to flee the devastated city."We have managed to get a preliminary
agreement on a humanitarian corridor for women, children and elderly persons," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on
Telegram.'Violent deaths'Elsewhere on the frontlines, Ukraine's defense ministry reported its troops had beaten back a Russian attack in
the city of Izium, south of the partly blockaded second city of Kharkiv in the east.Kyiv also claimed enemy losses in a Ukrainian
counter-attack near the town of Marinka in Donetsk.Separately, Russia on Wednesday said its forces had launched 73 airstrikes across
Ukraine, hitting dozens of locations where troops were concentrated.In eastern Ukraine's Kramatorsk, a large city in the Donetsk
"There's nothing good to expect."Further from the frontlines, residents were still reeling weeks after Russian forces withdrew from the
trucks.Four hundred bodies have been discovered since the Russians withdrew on March 31, local police chief Vitaly Lobas told AFP
Around a quarter of them are still unidentified."The majority died violent deaths" and were shot, Lobas said, declining to provide a
concrete figure at this stage.'War crimes'President Vladimir Putin has said he launched the so-called military operation in Ukraine in
February to save Russian speakers in the country from a "genocide" carried out by a "neo-Nazi" regime.But his forces have faced allegations
Like Bucha and too many other towns in Ukraine
