Russia forces claim seizure of Mariupol
POKROVSK, Ukraine — Russia claimed to have captured Mariupol on Friday in what would be its biggest victory yet in its war with Ukraine, after a nearly three-month siege that reduced much of the strategic port city to ruin, with over 20,000 civilians feared dead.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin the “complete liberation” of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol — the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance — and the city as a whole, spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
There was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the ministry as saying a total of 2,439 Ukrainian fighters who had been holed up at the steelworks had surrendered since Monday, including more than 500 on Friday.
As they surrendered, the troops were taken prisoner by the Russians, and at least some were taken to a former penal colony. Others were said to be hospitalized.
The defense of the steel mill had been led by Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins have been seized on by the Kremlin as part of an effort to cast its invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine. Russia said the Azov commander was taken from the plant in an armored vehicle.
Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some of the steel mill’s defenders for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them as Nazis and criminals.
The steelworks had been the site of fierce fighting for weeks. The dwindling group of outgunned fighters had held out in the plant, drawing Russian airstrikes, artillery and tank fire, before their government ordered them to abandon its defense and save their lives.
The complete takeover of
Mariupol gives Putin a badly needed military victory in the war he began Feb. 24, a conflict that was supposed to have been a lightning conquest for the Kremlin but instead has seen the failure to take the capital of Kyiv, a pullback of forces to refocus on eastern Ukraine, and the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Military analysts said Mariupol’s capture at this point holds more symbolic importance than anything else, since the city was already effectively under Moscow’s control.
In other developments Friday, the Group of Seven major economies and global
financial institutions agreed to provide more money to bolster Ukraine’s finances, bringing the total to $19.8 billion. President Joe Biden, who is in Asia, was expected to sign a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine and allies.
Meanwhile, fighting raged in the Donbas, the industrial heartland in eastern Ukraine that Putin desperately wants.
“The liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic is nearing completion,” Shoigu declared, referring to the breakaway state proclaimed by pro-Moscow separatists in 2014 and recognized by the Kremlin.
Serhiy Haidai, the governor
of Luhansk, said Russian forces were focused on the Lysychansk-Bakhmut highway, the only road for evacuating people and delivering humanitarian supplies.
“It’s the only connection to other regions of the country,” he said via email.
The Kremlin had sought control of Mariupol to complete a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized eight years ago, and free up troops to join the larger battle for the Donbas. The city’s loss also deprives Ukraine of a vital seaport.
Mariupol endured some of the worst suffering of the war and became a worldwide symbol of defiance. An estimated 100,000 people remained out a prewar population of 450,000, many trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows of shattered buildings.
A maternity hospital was hit with a lethal Russian airstrike on March 9, producing searing images of pregnant women being evacuated. A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in a bombing of a theater where civilians were taking shelter, although the death toll could be closer to 600.
Satellite images in April showed what appeared to be mass graves outside Mariupol, where local officials accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 civilians.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that the evacuation of his forces from the miles of tunnels and bunkers beneath Azovstal was done to save the lives of the fighters.
“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive,” Zelenskyy said.
As the end drew near at Azovstal, wives of fighters who held out told of what they feared would be their last contact with their husbands.
Olga Boiko, the wife of a marine, wiped away tears as she said that her husband had written her on Thursday: “Hello. We surrender, I don’t know when I will get in touch with you and if I will at all. Love you. Kiss you. Bye.”