(Reuters) – A Russian-backed separatist leader in eastern Ukraine said on Monday it would take more than a week to take control of the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
“I am not so optimistic that two or three days or even a week will close the issue. Unfortunately, no, the city is big,” Denis Pushilin, head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said, according to the report.
Mariupol, a port on the Azov Sea, was home to 400,000 people before the war. It has been under siege and bombardment, with no food, medicine, power or fresh water, since the early days of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Edmund Blair)
