Russia has begun its attack on the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a massive steel complex in Mariupol, just days after declaring victory in the southern city and claiming that the plant was unnecessary.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, stated that the country’s army was not prepared to use force to break the siege of the port city. It has been the conflict’s most significant combat to date. 
The assault on Mariupol has raged for weeks as Russia tries to recapture a city that is considered as crucial to its efforts to unite the eastern Donbas region with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014.
“At least eight people were murdered in the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Saturday,” according to Zelensky, “two missiles impacted a military installation and two residential structures, and two more were demolished.”
The death toll could not be verified independently. In early April, there was a large strike in or near Odesa.
“The sole purpose of Russian missile strikes on Odesa is fear,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
Russia has denied that people are being targeted in its special military operation, which began on February 24.
“It employed high-precision missiles on Saturday to demolish a logistics center in Odesa where a substantial quantity of weapons supplied by the United States and European nations were being housed,” the Russian defense ministry stated.
“On Saturday, Russian soldiers killed up to 200 Ukrainian troops and destroyed over 30 vehicles.”
Since the beginning of the war, Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Mariupol, destroying a city that once housed over 400,000 people.
On Saturday, a new attempt to evacuate citizens failed, according to a spokesman for Mariupol’s mayor.