Joanna Kakissis

It's unclear if the soldiers have been taken prisoner or are under the protection of the U.N., but a Ukrainian official says they would be able to return home after a prisoner exchange with Russia.

In the catacombs of a steel plant in Mariupol, Ukrainian soldiers stage a last stand against Russian occupation as their wives plead with aid groups to evacuate them along with civilians.

The final battle for Mariupol is taking place inside the Azovstal steel plant, a massive coastal complex in the besieged city. Hundreds of civilians are still trapped inside, officials say.

"Like the apocalypse, like a horror film," is how one evacuee describes weeks of sheltering in the vast, Soviet-era steel plant. Her daughter says, "Each day felt like it would be our last one alive."

More civilians are being evacuated Monday from a steel facility in Mariupol, Ukraine. But thousands of soldiers remain, many of whom are injured and have been holed up for weeks.

Heavy fighting continues in the north and south of Ukraine. The U.N. Secretary General was in Kyiv this week to try to set up evacuation routes from the besieged city of Mariupol.

A Polish farming town on the Ukrainian border has organized weekly shipments of protective equipment to exhausted Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline.

It was seen as a way for Russia to prop up its currency and retaliate for Western sanctions, but it could cause global energy prices to spike. One analyst sees it as a warning to the rest of Europe.

Russia's state-run gas company has cut supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. At the heart of this move: the war in Ukraine, the sanctions imposed by the West, and Russia's attempts to wriggle free of them.

The move was widely seen as an effort to prop up the ruble and strike back at Europe amid an onslaught of Western penalties levied against Russian banks.