Some Mariupol residents dig in, some flee as pro-Russia rebels close in
MARIUPOL, UKRAINE – Residents in east Ukraine’s strategic port of Mariupol dug trenches Friday as others packed up and fled over fears the city could be the next target for advancing pro-Russian rebels.
Journalists saw dozens of people hastily building defenses in a field on the eastern outskirts of the government-held city, after pro-Moscow forces that Kyiv claims are actually Russian troops, captured a town some 30 km (20 miles) away.
Others brought food and supplies to the makeshift barricades where Ukraine’s National Guard and volunteer fighters were trying to prepare for an attack from the direction of the Russian border.
The pro-Kyiv regional governor — based in Mariupol since being kicked out of the city of Donetsk by rebels — issued an appeal to residents to rally together into an “effective self-defense force for the city.”
“We have a chance today to create Ukraine’s history,” Donetsk region Gov. Sergiy Taruta said. “Each of us has to decide what he can do for his country.”
Indeed, several thousand residents in Mariupol — the heart of east Ukraine’s metals industry — had gathered Thursday evening to show their support for Kyiv by waving Ukrainian flags and holding up posters reading “Putin, go away.”
But by Friday many others clearly thought it was time to leave the threatened city.
Local inhabitants could be seen driving north from the city with buses crammed full of people displaying signs with “children” written on them, in the hope they would not be fired on.
Some may have been fleeing for a second time, having come to the city as refugees from fighting around Donetsk.
Mariupol, a major hub of about 500,000 people on the Azov Sea, is the next city along the coast after the town of Novoazovsk, which was seized from pro-Kyiv fighters Wednesday after days of brutal fighting.
Kyiv has admitted its forces no longer control Novoazovsk, and rebels have said in no uncertain terms that their plan is to “liberate” Mariupol next as part of a sweeping counter-offensive to win back territory captured by Kyiv.
The rebel leadership of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” has also said that the rebels now control the border with Russia, across which Kyiv and the West say Moscow has sent a flood of weapons and fighters.
To the north of the city a correspondent said that the towns of Telmanove and Komsomolske, lying between Mariupol and Donetsk, were still controlled by the Ukrainian Army Friday.
While fears are now mounting of a looming battle for the city, it will not be the first time that Mariupol has been fought over during the more than four months of brutal conflict between government forces and rebels in east Ukraine.
Pitched battles in the city killed over a dozen people in May and a police station was torched, but the army ousted separatists soon afterward.