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As we've been reporting, the battle for Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance in recent weeks, and this map goes some way to explaining why.

Azovstal - one of Europe's largest steel factories - is the last remaining area of the southern port city that is controlled by Ukraine.

Mariupol has been bombarded since the war began, primarily in an attempt by Russia to create a land corridor between Crimea and Donbas.

Geographically, the city occupies only a tiny area on the map but its expected total fall to Russia will be considered a huge win for Vladimir Putin - especially after how long it's taken. Read more about the significance of Mariupol here.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said an operation to "save the defenders of Mariupol" has started, but added the work will require "discretion and time".

In a video statement - which you can watch below - Zelensky thanks the Red Cross and UN, as well as Ukraine's military and intelligence services, for its efforts to "bring our lads home".

"Ukraine needs our Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle," he says.

Ukraine's defence ministry says 264 fighters have left the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol and been taken to areas held by Russian-backed rebels.

Ukraine is working on the "next stages" of the evacuation of fighters from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said on Telegram, external.

"In the interest of saving lives, 52 of our severely wounded servicemen were evacuated yesterday [Monday]. After their condition stabilises, we will exchange them for Russian prisoners of war."

She gave no other details, but concluded by saying: "God willing, everything will be fine."

On Monday, more than 50 wounded troops were taken from Azovstal to a hospital in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk. More than 210 others were taken to the town of Olenivka, which is controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Steve Rosenberg
BBC Russia editor

It was an extraordinary piece of television.

60 Minutes is the flagship talk show on Russian state TV: studio discussion promoting the Kremlin line in everything, including President Putin’s so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine. The Kremlin still maintains that the Russian offensive is going according to plan.

But studio guest Mikhail Khodarenok, a military analyst and retired colonel, painted a very different picture.

He warned that “the situation [for Russia] will clearly get worse” as Ukraine receives additional military assistance from the West and that “the Ukrainian army can arm a million people”.

Referring to Ukrainian soldiers, he noted that “the desire to defend their motherland very much exists".

"Ultimate victory on the battlefield is determined by the high morale of troops who are spilling blood for the ideas they are ready to fight for.”

“The biggest problem with [Russia’s] military and political situation”, he continued, “is that we are in total political isolation and the whole world is against us, even if we don’t want to admit it. We need to resolve this situation.”

“The situation cannot be considered normal when against us is a coalition of 42 countries and when our resources, military-political and military-technical, are limited.”

The other guests in the studio were silent; even the host, Olga Skabeyeva, normally fierce and vocal in her defence of the Kremlin, appeared unusually subdued.

It’s rare to hear such realistic analysis on Russian TV. The Kremlin has gone out its way to control the informational landscape here: shutting down independent Russian news sources, and ensuring that television – the principal tool in Russia for shaping public opinion - is on message.

So, what happened on 60 Minutes? Was this a spontaneous and unexpected wake-up call on Ukraine that slipped through the net? Was it pre-planned to prepare Russians for negative news on the "special military operation"?

It’s too early to say. Stay tuned to Russian TV for further signals.

Ukraine's military says Russia is "continuing its offensive" in the east of the country, but claims its troops have enjoyed some defensive successes in the last 24 hours.

"The enemy focused its main efforts on Donetsk," the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a Facebook update this morning.

"The enemy aviation hit civilian and military infrastructure in the Eastern Operational Zone and industrial facilities deep in Ukraine."

Officials added that mortars, conventional artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems were still being used to target Donetsk.

However, the General Staff also said its troops had managed to repel 11 Russian attacks across Donetsk and Luhansk, hitting a Russian Su-25 aircraft and a cruise missile in the process.

Five Russian tanks, one Tor anti-aircraft missile system, six artillery systems and 12 pieces of armoured hardware were also destroyed, the report states.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify these claims.

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Ukraine's air force says a sea-based Russian cruise missile has hit infrastructure targets outside the western city of Lviv overnight.

It says Ukraine's air defence shot down another three missiles.

The regional governor said railway facilities had been hit.

Russia has been targeting transport hubs and fuel depots around Lviv, in an apparent attempt to disrupt weapons deliveries from countries to the west.

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Paul Adams
BBC Diplomatic correspondent

Image source, Reuters

For Finland and Sweden to join Nato, all 30 existing members must say yes. But for now, one is saying no.

President Erdogan says he won’t agree to admit countries which apply sanctions on Turkey.

Sweden suspended arms sales to Turkey three years ago, following Ankara’s military intervention in Syria. And according to the official Turkish news agency, both Finland and Sweden have rejected dozens of requests to extradite Kurdish militants who Turkey describes as terrorists.

Both countries are sending delegations to Ankara to try and solve the problem, but President Erdogan says they shouldn’t bother.

He seems determined to extract a price for his precious vote. On Sunday, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was confident that Finland and Sweden would both join, despite Turkish objections.

The issue is likely to dominate discussions between Blinken and his Turkish opposite number in Washington on Wednesday.

Having encouraged the two Nordic countries to apply, Washington won’t want to let them down at the 11th hour.

• Sweden and Finland confirm Nato plans in historic shift

Image source, Reuters

As we've been reporting, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is opposed to Finland and Sweden joining Nato - and he's now said the two Nordic nations should not bother sending delegations to Turkey to try to persuade him.

Erdogan has labelled Sweden a "hatchery" for terrorist organisations, claiming there are terrorists within parliament.

Turkey accuses Sweden and Finland of sheltering people it says are linked to groups it deems terrorists, namely the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt against President Erdogan and his government.

Hugo Bachega
Reporting from Dnipro

Image source, Reuters

The evacuation of the Ukrainian fighters from their last stronghold in Mariupol likely marks the end of the months-long deadly battle for the city.

The troops’ defence of the Azovstal steelworks with very little food and water, and under intense Russian bombardment, became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. Hundreds were said to have been in urgent need of medical help, and pictures showed men with broken arms and amputated limbs. Their relatives made desperate pleas for a deal to rescue them.

Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said 53 injured fighters had been taken to a hospital in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk, while another 211 people had been transported to Olenivka, a town controlled by Russian-backed separatists. All of the evacuees, she said, would be subject to an “exchange procedure”.

The speculation is that the evacuated fighters will be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, but that has not been officially confirmed. Hundreds of fighters are believed to remain at the plant, and it is also not clear when and how they will be evacuated.

As for Mariupol, most of it now lies in ruins. Local officials say tens of thousands have been killed, with many of their bodies still under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

In its latest update on the situation in Ukraine, external, the UK Ministry of Defence says that in the northern Chernihiv region, some 3,500 buildings - mainly residential - are estimated to have been destroyed or damaged during Russia's advance (now abandoned).

This shows Russia is prepared to use artillery in inhabited areas and seems to have bombarded indiscriminately, because of a "limited target acquisition capability" and not wanting to fly combat aircraft beyond its front line, it says.

It predicts Russia will continue to rely on massed artillery strikes in the coming weeks to regain momentum in its advance in Donbas.

Jonathan Beale
BBC defence correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Russia's President Putin and his military chief, General Valery Gerasimov, are believed to be directly intervening in Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine and taking decisions normally made by more junior officers - according to a Western military source.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source said: “We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision-making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or brigadier.”

The military source said the two were the ones making decisions about troop movements in the Donbas – the area of eastern Ukraine which is now the focus of Russia’s military offensive.

There have already been suggestions that President Putin has become more involved in the day-to-day running of the military campaign, ever since Russia suffered setbacks in the north of the country and around the capital Kyiv.

There’s also been recent speculation that Russia’s military chief, General Gerasimov, may have been sidelined – along with unsubstantiated rumours that he was injured while visiting the Donbas a few weeks ago.

But the Western military official made clear that Russia’s chief of the general staff was still giving orders. “Gerasimov is up and running,” he said.

Image source, Reuters

Ukraine's military has said it is working to evacuate all remaining troops from the steelworks after months of bombardment, as it ends its defence of the plant.

"The 'Mariupol' garrison has fulfilled its combat mission," the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement.

"The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel," it added.

Some 600 troops are thought to have been inside the steel plant but it's unclear exactly how many remain.

"We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an early morning address.

"There are severely wounded ones among them. They're receiving care. Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive."

Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former Ukrainian national security chief and finance minister, currently serving as an officer in the Ukrainian army, has been talking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme about the situation at the steelworks.

He won’t say exactly how many remain at the plant, but says there are many more left there, some of them wounded.

"It's a relief, but it's not the end."

Their main mission is completed and their lives need to be saved, he says.

Russia controls Mariupol but they don't control the steel plant, though the strategic importance of the plant is minimal at this stage, he adds, so it's rather symbolic for Russia to take full control of the city.

"But that symbolic action will cost them a lot of lives."

The Ukrainian military has lauded the Ukrainian fighters who defended the Azovstal steel plant in the besieged southern city of Mariupol, calling them "heroes of our time" and that they would be remembered "forever in history".

Hundreds of fighters had been holed up in the tunnels beneath the massive industrial plant, defending the last Ukrainian stronghold in the city.

The strategically located port city had come under massive bombardment from Russian forces early in the invasion.

Taking the city would have allowed Russia to bridge the Crimean region, which had been annexed by Russia, and the Donbas region, which is led by pro-Russian separatists.

The last stand at Azovstal in Mariupol gave Ukraine "the opportunity to prepare and create the defensive frontiers on which our troops are still present today and give a decent counterpoint to the aggressor", said Ukraine's general staff of the armed forces in a Facebook update.

"We got the critically needed time to build reserves, regroup forces, and get help from partners."

Image source, Reuters

Hundreds of fighters trapped for more than two months in Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks have been evacuated from the plant.

They were taken to Russian-backed rebel towns in the eastern Donbas region.

Russia said a deal had been reached, and Ukraine said the troops would be exchanged for captured Russian soldiers.

Read more here.

Image source, Reuters

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If you are just joining us, or looking for a recap, here's a round-up of the latest events in Ukraine:

• Ukraine's defence ministry says 264 defenders of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol have been evacuated to separatist-held territory in Ukraine's breakaway Donbas region
• The evacuees include 53 badly wounded Ukrainian troops, as well as 211 others
• The Ukrainian military says it was trying to evacuate its remaining forces from the Azovstal steelworks, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky adding that Ukraine needed its heroes alive
• Western military sources say Russian President Vladimir Putin is now directly involved in the day-to-day running of the war in Ukraine, and together with his chief of staff, is taking decisions normally made by more junior officers
• One of the sources told the BBC this was further evidence that Moscow's campaign is still not going according to plan, and Mr Putin is becoming increasingly frustrated by its setbacks

This is Tessa Wong and Zubaidah Abdul Jalil in Singapore handing over to our colleagues Chris Giles and Alexandra Fouché in London, who’ll continue to bring you the latest developments.

Image source, Reuters

Pro-Russian military bloggers are becoming increasingly sceptical of Russia's war effort, according to a US-based think tank.

The Institute for the Study of War's (ISW) latest assessment, external noted that well-known blogger Igor Strelkov had claimed the Russian attempt to take the eastern Donbas region "ultimately failed", and that not a single large Ukrainian settlement “[had] been liberated".

Strelkov is a former Russian soldier and spy who led a military team that captured Donbas before rising to become defence minister of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic.

"The continued disenchantment of pro-Russian military bloggers with the Russian war effort may fuel dissatisfaction in Russia itself, especially if Moscow continues to press recruitment and conscription efforts that send poorly-trained cannon-fodder to the front lines," said the ISW in its assessment.

The report added that frictions between Russian administrators and local collaborators is "growing" in occupied areas of Ukraine, as a result of "inter-personal power conflicts".

The ISW cited an example from the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, in which an Ukrainian collaborator accused the Russian-installed governor of the area of stealing his 10,000 ruble (£124; $154) compensation.

"Such discontent amongst occupation elements suggests a general lack of planning by Russian authorities in occupied areas, now compounded by increasingly evident Russian losses," said the ISW.

Joe Inwood
BBC News

If this is the end of the siege of Mariupol, it is not the one many had expected.

Dozens of Ukrainian fighters – some carried out on stretchers to waiting Russian buses and taken to hospital. But not all were injured.

More than 200 other men were taken to a nearby Russian controlled town. The whole process from negotiation to evacuation took place in secret, with no word emerging until the Russians made an announcement yesterday.

It seems that, once again, the UN and Red Cross were heavily involved, maybe explaining why the Ukrainians accepted being taken to Russian territory.

Giving his nightly address, President Zelensky said there was one priority – saving the lives of his troops.

Ukraine needs its Ukrainian heroes alive, he said.

There are still many unknowns – most notably how many fighters remain in the plant, and what will happen to them

Both sides will no doubt try to sell this as a victory: Russia, because it will finally get control of this strategic port city, and Ukraine, because some of the soldiers who held on for so long have made it out alive.

Image source, AP

Wrapped in a duvet with her forehead bloodied, Marianna Vyshemirsky's image was seen around the world.

The photo above was taken in the aftermath of a Russian airstrike in Mariupol. Marianna was heavily pregnant at the time, and due to give birth to her baby daughter any day.

It circulated online, on newspaper front pages, and was argued about at the UN Security Council.

But, having survived one attack, Marianna faced another onslaught - of disinformation and hate aimed at her and her family.

As Russia attempted to sow falsehoods about the attack, 29-year-old Marianna was falsely accused of "acting". Russian diplomats even claimed that she had "played" not one, but two different women.

"I received threats that they would come and find me, that I would be killed, that my child would be cut into pieces," she says in an interview with the BBC, her first ever with a major Western media outlet.

Read more here.

Vitaliy Shevchenko
BBC Monitoring's Russia editor

Image source, Reuters

Fuel sales have been suspended at hundreds of petrol stations in Russia which belong to the oil giant Shell.

Earlier, the company said it was withdrawing from Russia over its war on Ukraine.

Announcements have appeared at Shell's pumps in Russia that are not selling fuel from 15 May, the Interfax news agency reports.

Shell is selling all of its 411 petrol stations in Russia to the country's second-largest oil producer, Lukoil.

"All fuel supplies have been suspended at stations covered by the deal with Lukoil, while shops and cafes remain open for now," Interfax quoted a Shell representative as saying.