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The remaining Ukrainian forces in the besieged coastal city of Mariupol in Ukraine were given a deadline.

Surrender by 6am on Sunday, April 17 (11am Singapore time), lay down their weapons, and they would have another five hours to evacuate the battle-ravaged city.

The deadline came and went, and the defenders of Mariupol refused to surrender, CNN reported.

"The city has still not fallen", Ukraine's prime minister Denis Shmyhal said during an appearance on ABC News.

"There's still our military forces, our soldiers. So they will fight to the end."

Mariupol under siege

While many cities in Ukraine have suffered Russian depredations, Mariupol may have been the hardest hit of all.

The city has come under intense pressure from Russian forces since near the beginning of the invasion.

As early as March 8, a maternity hospital was hit by Russian forces, caused by bombs from airplanes, according to local sources.

On March 20, an art school where about 400 civilians, including women, children and the elderly were sheltering was bombed, according to the city council and the city's mayor, Vadym Boychenko, cited by the Washington Post.

Boychenko also claimed that "thousands" of people sheltering in a sports hall were deported to Russia.

In addition to shelling and long-range strikes, Mariupol has seen grinding urban combat as Russian forces push into the city.

Why Mariupol

Mariupol's strategic location is the reason the city has come under such a fierce assault.

The city sits on the coast of the Sea of Azov, on the mouth of the Kalmius River.

After the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in 2014, Mariupol is one of the few cities left that provides Ukraine access to the Sea of Azov.

Its location lies between Russian-controlled Crimea, and the Russian-leaning separatist province of Donetsk.

Conquering Mariupol, along with other Ukrainian territory along the coast, would provide Russia a "land bridge" across friendly territory that reaches Crimea, Janes reported:

"If the city is captured, the Ukrainian forces currently located there will face either logistic isolation and/ or encirclement. For Moscow it would mean being able to unite the Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine with its troops in Crimea."

Major industrial centre

Mariupol itself is a key industrial centre for Ukraine, noted by a pre-war source as a centre for metallurgy and heavy engineering, in addition to having a major port.

The Illich Steel and Ironworks, one of Ukraine's largest metallurgical enterprises, is based there, as well as the Azovstal industrial plant.

Following the Russian withdrawal from the capital city of Kyiv, and a regrouping to focus on territorial gains in the eastern part of Ukraine, Mariupol has become a flashpoint in the war.

The final frontier.
The Mariupol garrison is now confined to the city’s main fortress, the Azovstal industrial complex.
It’s a giant and very complicated maze of steel and concrete, with lots of fortified underground shelters.
It will be very hard to get. pic.twitter.com/MiPpT3eWvZ

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) April 19, 2022

No surrender

Ukraine earlier rejected a demand by Russia on March 21 to surrender the city, according to the Financial Times.

On April 13, Russia claimed that over 1,000 Ukrainian marines had surrendered, according to The Guardian.

But a resistance still exists, reportedly holed up in the massive Azovstal steel plant.

"The steelworks, one of Europe’s biggest metallurgical plants with a maze of rail tracks and blast furnaces, has become a last stand for the outnumbered defenders," The Guardian reported.

Despite claims that the plant has been heavily bombed, Ukrainian forces are still there and appear to be making a last stand.

Their resistance is tying up as many as 12 Russian battalion tactical groups, each with about 600 to 800 personnel, Foreign Policy reporter Jack Detsch said, citing a senior U.S. defence official.

NEW: Russian victory in Ukraine's Mariupol – if the city falls – would free up 12 battalion tactical groups to fight in other parts of the country: senior U.S. defense official

— Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) April 18, 2022

If Mariupol falls, these Russian forces would be freed up to be deployed elsewhere in Ukraine.

NBC News quoted Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the UK, and a former director of the British army staff in the Ministry of Defence, who said that these Russian forces could break out in two different directions:

"It is quite possible that once Mariupol falls, that will release Russian forces from the two republics to either push west to Odesa or indeed push north in an effort to threaten the rear of the Ukrainian forces operating in the Donbas, which would pose the Ukrainian high command with a difficult choice about whether it continued to fight there or whether it seeks to withdraw."

On April 20, Russia gave the Ukrainian resistance a new ultimatum to surrender, Reuters reported.

But according to the Russian defence ministry, "not a single Ukrainian soldier had laid down their weapons" after the earlier April 17 ultimatum had lapsed.

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