Almost 500 civilians have been evacuated from the battered city of Mariupol and its besieged Azovstal steel plant since a UN-led rescue operation began, the head of Ukraine's presidential office has said.
"We have managed to evacuate almost 500 civilians," Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.
He said the Ukrainian government will "do everything to save all its civilians and military" stuck in the devastated city, adding that the evacuations would continue.
Ukraine said a new attempt was under way today to evacuate scores of civilians trapped in the heavily bombed steel works, after bloody fighting with Russian forces thwarted efforts to bring them to safety the previous day.
Mariupol, a strategic southern port on the Azov Sea, has endured the most destructive siege of the 10-week-old war and the sprawling Soviet-era Azovstal steel plant is the last part of the city still in the hands of holdout Ukrainian fighters.
UN-brokered evacuations of some of the hundreds of civilians who had taken shelter in the plant's network of tunnels and bunkers began at the weekend, but were halted in recent days by renewed fighting.
More than 300 civilians have been evacuated from Mariupol and other areas in southern Ukraine as part of a joint UN-Red Cross operation, the United Nations said.
Mariupol is an important target in Russian efforts to cut Ukraine off from its coastal grain and metals export routes, as well as to link Russian-controlled territory in the east of the country to Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014.
"The next stage of rescuing our people from Azovstal is under way at the moment. Information about the results will be provided later," Mr Yermak said. He gave no more details.
Russia has turned its heaviest firepower on Ukraine's east and south, after failing to take the capital Kyiv in the early weeks following its 24 February invasion.
The new front is aimed at limiting Ukraine's access to the Black Sea, vital for its grain and metals exports, and linking Russian-controlled territory in the east to the Crimea Peninsula, seized by Moscow in 2014.
Russia calls its actions a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and rid it of anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West.
Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
More than 5 million Ukrainians have fled abroad since the start of the invasion.
Ukraine's general staff said that Russian forces were continuing their "attempts to fully take over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions", areas in the east partially seized by Moscow-backed separatists in 2014.
Russia's defence ministry said it had destroyed a large ammunition depot in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk in a missile strike. It also said its air defences shot down two Ukrainian warplanes in the Luhansk region.
It was not possible to independently verify either side's statements about events on the battlefield.
