Women and children beg for help in video from besieged Mariupol steel factory

The film was recorded on Thursday. The women say 15 children are living in tunnels beneath the plant, ranging in age from babies to teenagers. They are trapped together with their families and other civilians, including factory workers.

The video shows several children, one apparently doing homework in a colouring book, surrounded by clothes and makeshift beds. A boy says he is desperate to see sunlight again and to breathe fresh air outside after weeks living in a dungeon.

About 80 civilians escaped from Mariupol on Wednesday in four buses. Ukraine says subsequent attempts have failed because Russian troops keep shelling the meeting place. They add that Moscow has forcibly removed 40,000 residents to Russian territory.

Further north, the Ukrainian army clawed back some territory. It liberated three villages around the city of Kharkiv, according to regional governor Oleh Synehubov. Troops had secured positions in Bezruky, Slatine and Prudianka villages, he said.

Ukrainian authorities said that a series of Russian TU-95 missiles fired from the Caspian Sea on Saturday killed at least five people in Odesa, including a three-month-old baby, and wounded 18 others.

Ukrainian authorities on Saturday urged those celebrating Orthodox Easter, one of the biggest celebrations in Ukraine, to follow religious services online and to respect curfews amid fighting with Russian troops, despite a holiday that usually attracts crowds.

Both Russia and Ukraine celebrate Orthodox Easter on Sunday, but hopes for a ceasefire faded on Saturday, with Ukrainian officials reporting the deadly strike on Odesa and fighting in the east.