She said: “The war is completely lost by Russia on the ground, that’s why they use this tactic of complete missile destruction on the land.
“Mariupol is unfortunately one of the most painful for us.
“They try to destroy quite a big city with more than half a million population.
“Yes, we tried to regroup the forces and overestimate how we can deal with this.
“But this is war and not everything is possible for the Ukrainian Army, but we are absolutely sure we will release Mariupol.
“The issue is about how many people we will lose before it.
“This is important for our partners to provide as much support as possible to release these people from this occupation.”
Moscow had originally given Kyiv a deadline to surrender the city of 5 am on Monday to surrender the besieged port city.
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The city is thought to be a contentious issue in ongoing peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
