“A few hours left”: Marines appeal to world to evacuate people from Mariupol

Olena Roshchina – Wednesday, 20 April 2022, 08:33

Serhii Volynskyi (known as Volyna), Commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has called on foreign countries to undertake an "extraction" of people from Mariupol; that is, to evacuate military personnel and civilians to a safe place. He said that only a few hours, or at most days, remain for people to be saved.

Source: Serhii Volynskyi in a video address published by Nataliia Nahorna, a reporter

According to Volynskyi: "This is our appeal to the world. It could be our last appeal. We might only have a few days, or even hours, left.

The enemy forces are tens of times bigger than ours. They control the air and dominate in terms of artillery, land forces, equipment, and tanks.

We are holding the line of defence at one site, the Azovstal plant, which currently houses both the Mariupol military garrison and civilians trapped in the midst of the war.

We are asking world leaders to help us. We are asking them to carry out an "extraction" operation and evacuate us to the territory of a third country.

At the Mariupol military garrison, we have over 500 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians, including women and children. We ask to be given safety on the territory of a third country. Thank you."

Earlier: On the night of 19-20 April, Serhii Volynskyi shared a written address in which he described two scenarios for saving Mariupol: a military one involving a lightning strike, or a political one involving political agreements.

Earlier President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said that Turkey was prepared to evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers from the besieged city by sea. Turkey has been holding negotiations concerning this, but so far these have not yielded results.

Background: "Exfiltration" or "extraction" is a tactic of removing personnel (military, civilian) from a hostile environment to a secure location in conditions where there is a threat of loss of control over the territory and death.