Major Serhiy Volyna said his troops would not surrender, but called for international assistance for the 500 wounded soldiers and hundreds of women and children protected by his battalion.

A Ukrainian navy commander in the Russian besieged city of Mariupol posted a video message Wednesday saying that his men had only a few hours to live.

Major Serhiy Volyna is in the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the city and has posted the video to the BBC and other media.

Volyna said her troops would not surrender, but called for international assistance for 500 wounded soldiers and hundreds of women and children, whom she said were housed in a steel industry – an extension of the 10 km² Azovstal iron and steel plant.

“Our last message to this world. This may be our last message. We may only have a few days or hours to live,” said Major Volyna.

“We are asking for help from world leaders,” he added. “We ask them to organize a landing and take us to another country.”

“The enemy troops outnumber us by eleven, they have air dominance, artillery, ground troops and tanks,” said Volyna, commander of the 36th Marine Brigade.

He did not say how many Ukrainian soldiers remained at the factory, but said they had “good fighting spirit”.

However, he said the condition of the injured was “very serious”. “They’re in the basement, rotting there,” said the Major.

While the commander stressed that his men would not surrender, Russia said last week that 1,026 soldiers from this unit surrendered, including 162 officers.

There is another combat unit stationed inside the steel mill. The Azov Brigade, named after the Sea of ​​Azov, connecting Mariupol with the rest of the Black Sea.

The Azovs are a militia linked to far-right nationalists who later joined the Ukrainian National Guard. It is estimated to have around 900 soldiers.

The naval unit joined Azov in Mariupol last week. It is not clear how many joint Ukrainian soldiers remained at the plant.

The Azovs posted a message to Telegram on Tuesday: “We will fight, we will use all the cartridges we have at our disposal, but we ask the motherland to save civilians, save the wounded and remove the corpses.”

What about humanitarian corridors?

Mariupol has been a strategic target for Russia since its forces invaded Ukraine in February.

The Russian Ministry of Defense issued another ultimatum Wednesday morning to the Ukrainian forces stationed at the Azovstal plant to lay down their arms and surrender, but the deadline passed without any sign of surrender.

Not a single Ukrainian soldier accepted Tuesday’s offer, the ministry said in a statement.

But Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine has reached a preliminary agreement with Russia to evacuate civilians.

Vereshchuk said this would include opening a humanitarian corridor for women, children and the elderly. Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko previously announced that evacuation corridors between Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia will be opened.

Boychenko reported on social media that residents can get on buses on Taganrogskaya Street, which will also stop at the Azovstal plant.

“They survived these very long and difficult days in inhumane conditions,” Boychenko said. Said. “There was an information gap, they had no access to any information.”

However, agreements to open humanitarian corridors have been difficult to implement. “The situation in Mariupol is as serious as possible,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky told the BBC last week that Russia believes up to 20,000 people were killed in the bombing of the city, and an unknown number of civilians were taken to Russian soil.

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