A senior military official in Ukraine said that "measures to evacuate the Ukrainian military from Mariupol continue," as Russia claimed more than 1,700 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered from the Azovstal plant since Monday.
Addressing the media in Kyiv, Brigadier General Oleksii Gromov said that "in the Mariupol direction, the intensity of hostilities has been reduced. At this time, measures are continuing to evacuate our heroes" from the Azovstal plant. Several hundred soldiers are still thought to be inside the plant.

The Ukrainian government has said little about the evacuation process since it began on Monday.
Gromov addressed whether the lives of those soldiers who had been evacuated to Russian-controlled territory were at risk.
"We know that our enemy is insidious, but we believe that the word given by them will be fulfilled," he said.
Russia has said that the prisoners will be treated in accordance with international law, but the government's investigative committee has said that its staff "as part of the investigation of criminal cases by the Ukrainian regime against the civilian population of Donbas, will interrogate the surrendered militants who were hiding at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol."
CNN is unable to confirm the Russian tally of those it said had surrendered.
Ukraine said earlier this week that the "combat mission" had ended at the complex, which was for weeks the last major holdout in a city otherwise occupied by Russian troops.