The commander of Mariupol makes a ‘final’ appeal.

A Ukrainian marine commander issued what he called their “last address to the world” while his troops battled overwhelming Russian forces in Mariupol.

They were outmanned and running low on supplies, according to Major Serhiy Volyna.

The Russian deadline for Ukrainian military capitulation has passed with no sign of the forces complying.

The final holdouts live at the city’s vast Azovstal steel plant, which houses 1,000 people.

According to Kyiv, a tentative deal to evacuate certain residents of the city has been struck.

According to the city’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, who spoke on national television, Ukraine had planned to send 90 buses to evacuate around 6,000 residents on Wednesday.

According to him, almost 100,000 people are stranded in Mariupol.

However, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko later reported that fewer buses were able to reach trapped civilians than predicted, and that only a small number of individuals were rescued.

“Of course, many came at the agreed-upon meeting points,” he told the news agency, “but just a tiny number of them boarded the buses.”

The Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, a sprawling four-square-mile (10-square-kilometer) complex in Mariupol’s south-east, has emerged as the city’s last bastion of Ukrainian resistance.