Sylvie Claire / May 12, 2022
A Ukrainian commander among the fighters besieged by Russian forces in the Azovstal factory in Mariupol on Wednesday appealed directly to American billionaire Elon Musk for help in saving them.
People say you come from another planet to teach people to believe in the impossible. In the place where I live, it is almost impossible to survive, tweeted Sergei Volyna, commander of the 36th Marine Brigade in Mariupol. Help us leave Azovstal for a third country. If not you, who else? Give me a lead, he continued, indicating that he had created an account on Twitter specifically to appeal directly to the richest man in the world. Kiev said this week that more than 1,000 soldiers, many of them wounded, were still in the bowels of the steel site, which houses an extensive Soviet-era underground labyrinth.
This is the only pocket of resistance in the strategic port city of Mariupol, otherwise now controlled by the Russians. Elon Musk has 92 million followers on Twitter, whose users in Ukraine have multiplied to be informed and find help. The whimsical billionaire challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin in mid-March in a man-to-man fight with Ukraine at stake. A shipment of terminals from Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service arrived in early March in Ukraine, to help bring internet connectivity to areas hit by the Russian army's assault on the country on February 24.