A full abandonment of the bunkers and tunnels of the bombed-out Azovstal steel plant will end the most destructive siege of a war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24
Service members of the Ukrainian armed forces are seen within the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works complex in Mariupol, Ukraine, on May 20 2022. Picture: HANDOUT via REUTERS
“We have constantly emphasised the three most important conditions for us: civilians, wounded and dead,” Lieutenant Colonel Denys Prokopenko, the commander, said in the video shared on the Telegram messaging app. Ukraine ordered its garrison in Mariupol to stand down on Monday but has since given few details of what it describes as an effort to rescue fighters from Azovstal, the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance the ruined port.
Russia needs Mariupol, one of Ukraine’s main seaports, to cement its control of land it has seized along the coast, reaching all the way west to annexed Crimea.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Mariupol’s last defenders — regular soldiers as well as members of the National Guard, to which the Azov Regiment belongs — are national heroes, and that he hopes they can be exchanged for Russian prisoners.
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