Ukrainian official says Mariupol ‘still hasn’t fallen’ after deadline for surrender

Ukrainian Prime MInister Denys Shmyhal on Sunday said Mariupol had not yet fallen to Russian forces after Ukraine refused to surrender the city by Russia’s stated deadline.

“City still has not fallen. There is still our military forces, our soldiers. So they will fight to the end. As for now, they still are in Mariupol,” Shmyhal told ABC’s “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos.

“But there is huge humanitarian catastrophe because there is more than 100 civilians which are suffering for more than 40 days of this humanitarian crisis…in this besieged city,” Shmyhal added. “And they have no water, no food, no heat, no electricity. And we ask all of our partners to support and help to stop this humanitarian catastrophe in Mariupol.”

Noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had apparently told Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer that he believed Russia was winning the war, Stephanopoulos asked Shmyhal if this assessment was accurate.

“For now, no one big city in Ukraine is not fallen and … is under control of Russian military forces. But all of the rest of the cities are under Ukrainian control,” Shmyhal said. “We have some of the cities under — surrounding, so they’re besieged, but they’re still under Ukrainian control. Bigger and smaller cities and towns are under Ukrainian control.”

Stephanopoulos also questioned Shmyhal about the state of peace talks, asking if negotiators had reached a dead-end in talks, as Putin said last week.

The Ukrainian Prime minister reiterated that Ukraine was prepared to end the war diplomatically, but said his country was prepared to “fight to the end.”

“We will not surrender. We won’t leave our country, our families, our land. So we will fight absolutely to the end, to win in this war,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN on Sunday that Ukraine is “not going to give up” its own land as part of a peace deal.

“Ukraine and the people of our state are absolutely clear. We don’t want anyone else’s territory, and we are not going to give up our own,” the president said.