The United States said Russian and Ukrainian forces were still fighting for control of Mariupol, even after Moscow said it had taken over the port city and welcomed its “liberation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his forces to “block” the last remaining Ukrainian fighters at the Mariupol steel plant as he claimed success in the city after a two-month battle. Ukraine rejected the declaration, saying it only underscores the strength of resistance in steel plants.
“Russia is still focused on Mariupol, we haven’t seen them move away in any tangible way,” a senior US defense official said on Thursday, adding that Russia had carried out air strikes there in the past 24 hours. The official said time was a factor for both sides in terms of maneuverability and visibility.
The last Ukrainian fighters are being held in the underground passages of the Azovstal complex along with about 1,000 civilians.
In a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin told him to congratulate Russian forces on the capture of the city, an important goal of linking separatist-controlled areas in the eastern Donbass region with territory taken over southern Ukraine.
While Shoigu said Russian forces controlled Mariupol’s residential areas, he acknowledged that his troops were still fighting at the Azovstal steel plant.
The Russian president told Shoigu not to storm the plant, but instead “to block it so that no fly can enter.”
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden said that “there is still no evidence that Mariupol has fallen completely.” He also called on Putin to allow civilians to leave the besieged city.
“He must allow humanitarian corridors to allow people in this steel factory and other places buried under rubble to get out,” he said. “This is what any head of state would do in such circumstances.”
Commenting on Putin’s claim of victory in Mariupol, Alexei Arestovich, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, said: “This means the following: they cannot take over Azovstal.”
He added: “This is a premature declaration of victory, without waiting for either [Orthodox] Easter [this weekend] or May 9 [the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany]shows that the Russians understand the lack of prospects for their last military operation at this stage of the war.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Azovstal was a “separate site” and that the barricade of other Ukrainian fighters there did not mean Russia had changed its plans for the invasion.
The takeover of Mariupol, an important port for Ukraine’s metal exports, would allow Moscow to link the annexed Crimean peninsula to mainland Russia, potentially allowing Putin to claim that he has achieved his main goals, although the invasion continues to spread.
Shoigu also claims that Mariupol is the “capital” of the far-right Azov nationalist battalion, which gives Russia the potential to say that it has achieved its vague goal of “denazification” of Ukraine.
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Kyiv said the city was nearly destroyed and that at least 20,000 civilians were killed during Russia’s siege, which involved heavy artillery, missile strikes and long-range bombers.
Ukraine is looking for a safe passage from Mariupol for other underground fighters and civilians, including children, the elderly and the wounded.
Kyiv offered to send representatives to the city to negotiate the departure of the military garrison and civilians.
Svyatoslav Palamara, deputy regiment commander of the Azov paramilitary battalion in Mariupol, said in a video Wednesday that the complex’s fighters want to evacuate their wounded and take the bodies of the dead and bury them with honor in a territory not controlled by Russia.
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