Russia says its troops have cleared the urban area of the key city of Mariupol, and only a small contingent of Ukrainian fighters remains at the steel plant in the besieged southern port.
Russia’s claim that it has taken control of Mariupol – the site of the worst fighting in the war and the worst humanitarian catastrophe – cannot be verified independently. This will be the first major city to fall from Russian forces since the February 24 invasion.
“The entire urban area of Mariupol has been completely cleared… remnants of the Ukrainian group are currently completely blocked on the territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant,” said Igor Konashenkov, chief spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry.
“Their only chance to save their lives is to lay down their arms voluntarily and surrender.”
Konashenkov said 1,464 Ukrainian servicemen had already surrendered “in the course of the liberation of Mariupol.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry has said that if Ukrainian forces still fighting in Mariupol lay down their weapons at 6 a.m. Moscow time (03:00 GMT), their lives will be spared, TASS reported.
In the key port city, journalists from Russian-controlled neighborhoods reached the steel plant, one of two metallurgical plants where defenders lingered in underground tunnels and bunkers.
The factory was turned into ruins of twisted steel and exploded concrete, without any traces of defenders present. Several bodies of civilians lay scattered in the nearby streets, including a woman in a pink parka and white shoes.
Someone had spray-painted a mine on a fence from a deleted gas station. As a rare sign of life, a red car was driving slowly down an otherwise empty street, the word “children” scribbled on a map on the windshield.
“I absolutely hate them”
There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv to Russian allegations.
“The situation is very difficult in Mariupol,” President Vladimir Zelensky told the Ukrainian Pravda news portal. “Our soldiers are blocked, the wounded are blocked. There is a humanitarian crisis … However, the boys are defending themselves. “
Speaking in an online address, he accused Russia of trying to destroy the city’s residents, but did not respond to Moscow’s claim of taking over Mariupol.
Zelensky has threatened to withdraw from ongoing peace talks with Russia if Ukrainian fighters trapped in the port city are killed.
“What they are doing now … could put an end to all forms of negotiations,” Zelensky said in an interview with a Ukrainian news website.
“There are troops there who absolutely hate them and I don’t think they will let them live,” the Ukrainian leader said, referring to the fact that many of the fighters in Mariupol are part of the far-right Azov Battalion.
“23 367 irreparable losses”
Zelensky said about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed so far and about 20,000 Russian soldiers.
But Konashenkov gave a significantly higher death toll on Saturday.
As of April 16, the number of victims of the Ukrainian contingent in Mariupol alone amounts to more than 4,000 people… The Russian Ministry of Defense has reliable data on the real losses suffered by the Ukrainian army, the National Guard and foreign mercenaries .
“To date, the irreparable losses amount to 23,367 people.
A month and a half after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia is trying to seize territory to the south and east after withdrawing from the north after an attack on Kyiv that was repulsed on the outskirts of the capital.
Russian troops retreating from the north left behind cities dotted with civilian bodies.
Putin seems determined to take more Donbass territory to claim victory in a war that has left Russia subject to increasingly punitive Western sanctions and few allies.
Zelensky told Ukrainian reporters that the world needs to prepare “in a number of ways” for Russia’s ability to use nuclear weapons. He did not provide evidence for his claim.
Last month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would resort to nuclear weapons only in the event of a “threat to the country’s existence” – not as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.
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