Ukraine remains defiant as key port city of Mariupol teeters on the brink

Kyiv, Ukraine — The battered port city of Mariupol appeared on the brink of falling to Russian forces Sunday after seven weeks under siege, a development that what would give Moscow a crucial success in Ukraine following a botched attempt to storm the capital and the loss of the Russian navy's Black Sea flagship.

The Russian military estimated that about 2,500 Ukrainian fighters holding out at a hulking steel plant with a warren of underground passageways provided the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol. Russia gave another deadline for their surrender, saying those who put down their weapons were "guaranteed to keep their lives," but Ukraine remained defiant.

"All those who will continue resistance will be destroyed," Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman, said. He said intercepted communications indicated there were about 400 foreign mercenaries along with the Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal steel mill, a claim that couldn't be independently verified.