Russia claims victory in Mariupol but fears rise for Ukrainian POWS
Russia’s claimed seizure of a Mariupol steel plant that became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly wanted victory in the war he began, capping a nearly three-month siege that left the city in ruins and more than 20,000 residents feared dead.
After the Russian Defence Ministry announced on Friday that its forces had removed the last Ukrainian fighters from the plant’s underground tunnels, concern mounted for the Ukrainian defenders who now are prisoners.
Denis Pushilin, head of an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, said that the Ukrainians were sure to face a tribunal.
“I believe justice must be restored. There is a request for this from ordinary people, society and, probably, the sane part of the world community,”
Russian state news agency quoted Pushilin as saying.
Russian officials and state media have tried to characterise the fighters who holed up in the steel plant as neo-nazis and criminals. Among the plant’s more than 2400 defenders were members of the Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins have been seized on by the Kremlin.
The end of the battle for Mariupol would help Putin offset some stinging setbacks, including the failure of Russian troops to take over Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, the sinking of the Russian Navy’s flagship in the Black Sea and the continued resistance in eastern Ukraine.
It also furthers Russia’s quest to create a land bridge from Russia stretching through the Donbas region
Tass to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported that Russia destroyed a Ukrainian special-operations base in the Black Sea region of Odesa as well as a cache of Western-supplied weapons in northern Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region. There was no
confirmation from the Ukrainian side.
In its morning report, the Ukrainian military general staff reported heavy fighting in much of eastern Ukraine, including the areas of Sievierodonetsk, Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
Speaking at a joint media conference with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy pressed Western countries to provide launch rocket systems.
Last week US President Joe Biden signed off a fresh US$40 billion ($62.6b) infusion of aid for Ukraine, half of it for military assistance.
Portugal also pledged up to €250 million in financial support, as well as continued shipments of military equipment.
Zelenskyy revealed in an interview published on Friday that Ukrainian helicopter pilots braved Russian anti-aircraft fire to ferry in medicine, food and water to the steel mill as well as to retrieve bodies and rescue wounded fighters.
With Russia controlling Mariupol, Ukrainian authorities are likely to face delays in documenting evidence of alleged Russian atrocities there.
Satellite images in April showed what appeared to be mass graves just outside Mariupol, where Russia is accused of concealing the slaughter by burying up to 9000 civilians.