Mariupol on the verge of falling

Russia estimates 2,500 Ukrainian fighters are holding out at a hulking steel plant in the last pocket of resistance in the city of Mariupol. Much of the city now lies in smoldering ruin. Russian commanders have issued an ultimatum to Ukrainian troops: Surrender or die. But Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told ABC’s This Week: “We will not leave our country, our families, our land. So we will fight absolutely to the end to win in this war.”

Why do the Russians want Mariupol? The fall of Mariupol would hand them their biggest victory of the war thus far. And it would give them their sought-after land bridge from Crimea, a part of Ukraine that Russia annexed in 2014, to eastern Ukraine.

Dig deeper: Follow WORLD’s ongoing coverage of the war in Ukraine.