Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday declared that Moscow had seized Ukraine’s Mariupol even as his defense minister said more than 2,000 opposing troops remain holed up in an industrial complex in the strategic southern port city.
“Taking control of such an important center in the south as Mariupol is a success,” Putin said in a televised meeting with Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.
Although devastated by nearly two months of assault, Mariupol would be the biggest city yet taken by Russia in a two-month invasion that has delivered few major triumphs for the Kremlin.
Photo: AFP / Mariupol City Council
Facing the prospect of a longer and deadlier standoff, Putin ordered Shoigu to call off the storming of the Azovstal steel works, saying it would save the lives of Russian troops.
“Seal that industrial area off so that even a fly can’t get through,” he said, calling on remaining Ukrainian troops at the plant to surrender, something they have repeatedly refused to do.
“The situation on Azovstal is desperate. Hundreds of civilians, children, injured Ukrainian defenders are trapped in plants shelters. They have almost no food, water, essential medicine,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote on Twitter. “An urgent humanitarian corridor is needed from the Azovstal plant with guarantees people will be safe.”
About 100,000 civilians are now in Mariupol, including between 300 and 1,000 hiding in bunkers in Azovstal, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said at a televised press conference.
Nearly 50,000 city residents are in surrounding villages and about 40,000 were taken to Russia or territory it controls, he said.
Earlier, he accused Russia of trying to conceal civilian deaths, trucking corpses from Mariupol to mass graves west of the city.
He said Moscow is operating several “filtration camps” there, where Ukrainian officials and municipal workers are detained.
Shoigu did not indicate how many troops would need to remain in Mariupol to seal off the steel plant.
He said Ukraine had just more than 8,000 troops in the city just before the siege.
It is not known how many civilians died in the city, but Boychenko estimated the civilian death toll at about 20,000. The Russian attacks destroyed much of the city, with more than 100,000 residents trapped without power, heat and water. Amid some of the worst carnage of the war, bodies were buried in common graves or left in the streets.
Social media have been awash with grim images of Mariupol’s shattered center, shown side-by-side with pictures taken before the war, when the city of more than 450,000 enjoyed a minor investment boom, as its parks and infrastructure were renovated.
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