‘I am looking into hell’: Soldiers plead for help from Azovstal steel plant

“I am alive, but nothing much more, the shelling is getting intense and the circle is getting smaller. We are dying here slowly, I feel like I am looking into hell. I am not sure how much longer we can carry on and I don’t know whether we will see each other again. Remember, I love you very much.”

This message was the last time that Nataliia Zarytska heard from her husband, Bogdan, who is among soldiers desperately holding out in Mariupol, surrounded by overwhelming numbers of Russian forces, pounded by air and artillery strikes and with little or no chance to escape.

A force of around 2,500 – more than 700 of whom are injured – is holed up in the sprawling Azovstal steel plant, much of which has been bombarded into a wasteland of twisted metal.