A team from Agence France-Presse (AFP) managed to reach Mariupol surrounded by Russian forces today during a press visit organized by the Russian military. She watched as the port of this city in southern Ukraine was destroyed: buildings burned, ships sunk and shrapnel was visible.

If no more fighting takes place, the noise of the bombing regularly comes from the industrial area where the Azovstal metallurgical complex is located, visible a few kilometers away on the other side of the bay, where several hundred soldiers and Ukrainian civilians are trapped underground. Huh. Soviet dating gallery.

AFP heard heavy shelling in Azovstal in the morning and mid-afternoon. In the early afternoon, explosions occurred in the span of only a few seconds, with some appearing particularly powerful. Columns of gray smoke sometimes rose in the sky over the industrial area.

In the port, mining operations take place. “The port water and the port itself have been mined. We conduct demining operations to secure them.”According to Sergei Neka, a senior official of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Administration of Pro-Russian Separatists.

At the end of a pier, two men in heavy suits work to neutralize underwater mines brought by divers, as well as rockets. Once the devices are neutralized, they are transported by a military truck.