Russian troops trying to ‘storm’ Azovstal.
Moscow’s forces are attacking the final holdout in besieged port city, backed by tanks and artillery, according to Kyiv.
Ukraine’s defence ministry says Russian forces are attempting to “storm” Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks.President Vladimir Putin tells a World War II Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square that Russian troops in eastern Ukraine are fighting for “the motherland” as the Kremlin presses on with its offensive in the Donbas.
Putin also says Moscow’s invasion was a preemptive move to ward off aggression from the West.President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls for moves to open Ukrainian ports blockaded by Russia to allow for exports and prevent a global food crisis.
US to suspend tariffs on Ukrainian steel for one year.
The United States will suspend tariffs on Ukrainian steel for one year, the country’s Commerce Department says, citing the damage Moscow’s offensive has done to the industry.
"Some of Ukraine’s largest steel communities have been among those hardest hit by Putin’s barbarism, and the steel mill in Mariupol has become a lasting symbol of Ukraine’s determination to resist Russia’s aggression,” the department said in a statement, referring to the plant that became the last redoubt of government troops fighting Russians for their city.
Still on Ukraine, UN chief Moldova visit ‘telling’ as fears of war spreading mount:
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s visit on Monday to Moldova’s capital is “very telling” amid mounting fears the country’s breakaway republic of Transnistria could be drawn into the war.
“There are increasing fears among Western analysts and Western European governments about potentially this war expanding further into Europe, or at least in Moldova’s case, European-Union aspiring countries,” Stratford said.
“Let’s not forget that it was a couple of weeks ago that a Russian general was quoted … as saying that this phase of Russia’s war could see its forces take control of all of southern Ukraine to the Transnistria region – a breakaway republic within Moldova,” he added.
“Transnistria is not even recognised by Russia but in the last week or so we have heard of explosions and shootings in that breakaway, self-declared republic.
“The Transnistrian authorities blamed the Ukrainians… but also what’s very telling is what the Russian general said about the oppression of Russian-speakers inside Transnistria, and it is that kind of language that was used by Putin in order to, in his words, legitimise protecting Russian speakers in the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk [in eastern Ukraine].”
