KYIV, May 8 — Ukrainian fighters at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the southeastern port of Mariupol, who are the last holdout against Russian forces in the city, vowed today to continue their stand as long as they are alive.

"We will continue to fight as long as we are alive to repel the Russian occupiers,” Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, a deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, told an online conference.

"We don’t have much time, we are coming under intense shelling,” he said, pleading with the international community to help to evacuate wounded soldiers from the plant in Mariupol. — Reuters