Ukraine steelmen hold their ground as frontline marches towards port

MARIUPOL Ukraine (Reuters) - The war is being fought just over the hills. Civilians have started to flee the city. But the men of the vast Ilyich iron and steel works in the Ukrainain port of Mariupol are still in place, pouring molten steel, running the rolling mill and pledging to defend their factory and town from an onslaught by pro-Russian rebels.

Mariupol, a port of around half a million people, is the next big city in the path of advancing rebels, who opened a new front and scattered Ukrainian troops along the coast of the Azov Sea last week with what Kiev says is help from the Russian army.