Russia unleashes rockets in Mariupol, EU readies oil sanctions

The U.S. Congress is considering a $33 billion military aid package

Russian forces fired rockets at an encircled steel works in Ukraine's southern port city of Mariupol and thick smoke blackened the sky at the plant where officials on Tuesday said 200 civilians were trapped despite evacuations, Qazet.az reports.

Russia's offensive to capture the east and south after failing to take the capital of Kyiv has been met with commitments by Western powers to supply heavier weapons to Ukraine. On Tuesday, the European Commission is expected to finalise a ban on buying Russian oil in an effort to squeeze Moscow's war chest.

The U.S. Congress is considering a $33 billion military aid package, and the United Kingdom this week vowed an additional $375 million in defence assistance.

Reuters images showed volleys of rockets fired from a Russian truck-mounted launcher towards the sprawling Soviet-era steel complex from the outskirts of Russian-occupied Mariupol on Monday.

The attack followed a UN-brokered ceasefire around the complex that allowed several groups of civilians to escape Mariupol's last holdout of Ukrainian fighters in recent days. It was not immediately clear if new fighting was preventing more evacuations.

Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko said he hoped a first column of evacuees would reach the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday, adding that more civilians were trapped in bunkers and tunnels under the complex and some 100,000 remained in the rest of the city.

"You wake up in the morning and you cry. You cry in the evening. I don't know where to go at all," said Mariupol resident Tatyana Bushlanova, sitting by a blackened apartment block and talking over the sound of shells exploding nearby.