'Fortress in a city': Ukrainians cling on at steel plant in Mariupol

A view shows a torn flag of Ukraine hung on a wire in front an apartment building destroyed during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 14, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

(Reuters) - Explosions rumbled and smoke rose this week from a steel making district in besieged Mariupol where dwindling Ukrainian forces are holed up as Russia tries to take full control of its biggest city yet.

The Azovstal iron and steel works, one of Europe's biggest metallurgical plants, has become an aptly apocalyptic redoubt for Ukrainian forces who are outgunned, outnumbered and surrounded seven weeks into Russia's invasion of Ukraine.