Russia says nearly 700 more Mariupol fighters will surrender.The leader still made a hole

ryanniesMay 18, 2022

KYIV / MARIUPOL — Russia said Wednesday that nearly 700 Ukrainian fighters had surrendered to the Mariupol ironworks in the last 24 hours, but the leader is still trapped inside and is the longest bloody battle in Europe. It was reported that the final end was delayed by decades.

Meanwhile, Finland and Sweden formally applied for NATO membership, bringing about the great expansion that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has long cited as one of the main reasons for launching a “special military operation” in February. I did.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the surrender of 694 fighters meant that a total of 959 people now lay their arms at the vast Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, the last fort of Ukrainian defenders in the city.

Once confirmed, Russia’s announcement will solve many of the mysteries surrounding the fate of hundreds of fighters in the factory, as Ukraine announced on Tuesday that it had ordered the entire garrison to confront. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, which has confirmed that about 250 people have left the factory so far, did not immediately respond to the request for written comment.

A local news agency reported that pro-Russian separatist leaders controlling the area said the main commander in the factory had not yet surrendered.

The final surrender of Mariupol will result in a nearly three-month siege of the once prosperous city of 400,000. Ukraine states that Russia’s siege and artillery killed tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom were buried in mass graves.

Kieu and Moscow said on Tuesday that about 250 people had left the factory, leaving little clue as to the fate of the hundreds believed to be inside. Ukraine said it would not reveal how many were there until the operation to rescue them all was completed.

Ukrainian officials talked about their hopes of arranging prisoner exchanges for the defenders of Mariupol, who they describe as national heroes. Moscow says no such arrangement was made for the fighter it calls the Nazis.

Russia said more than 50 injured fighters were taken to hospitals for treatment, and other fighters were taken to a newly reopened prison in a pro-Russian separatist-owned town. say. Reuters journalists filmed a bus carrying captured fighters to both locations.

The Kremlin says Putin personally guaranteed the humane treatment of surrendered people, but prominent Russian politicians publicly ensure that they are never exchanged, or even for their execution. I’m looking for it.

Finland and Sweden apply to NATO

The Swedish and Finnish ambassadors handed over the NATO membership application at a ceremony at the Alliance headquarters.

“This is a historic moment we have to capture,” said NATO Secretary-General Jason Stoltenberg.

According to diplomats, ratification of all 30 allied parliaments can take up to a year. Turkey recently surprised its allies by saying that it has reserved its soil resistance to new candidate members, especially Kurdish militant groups.

Stortemberg said he thought the problem could be overcome. Washington also downplays the possibility that Turkey’s opposition will cease accession.

Finland and Sweden, which share a 1,300 km (810 mile) border with Russia, have been military non-aligned during the Cold War, and their decision to join the alliance has been European security for decades. It represents the greatest change in security.

At once, it will more than double the alliance’s border with Russia, let NATO control almost the entire Baltic Sea, and put NATO guards just a few hours drive north of St. Petersburg.

A few weeks after Russia threatened retaliation against the plan, Putin said in a speech this Monday that Russia was “no problem” in either Finland or Sweden, and that NATO membership would not be an issue. The alliance sent more troops and weapons there.

victory

The surrender of the steelworks in Mariupol allows Putin to claim a rare victory in a campaign that would otherwise fail. In recent weeks, Russian troops have abandoned the area around Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, and have been retreating the fastest since they were expelled from the north and around Kyiv at the end of March.

Nevertheless, Moscow has continued its main attacks to occupy more territory in the Donbus region of southeastern Ukraine, which it claims to replace the separatists who have supported it since 2014.

Mariupol, the main port of Donbus, is the largest city ever occupied by Russia, giving Moscow full control of the uninterrupted territory that straddles the Sea of Azov and the east and south of Ukraine.

The siege was Europe’s most deadly battle, at least since the war in Chechnya and the Balkans in the 1990s.

Months of city resistance have become a global symbol of Ukraine’s refusal to surrender against far-armed enemies, but its nearly complete destruction will set fire to densely populated areas. Showed Russian tactics.

Russia claims to have agreed not to replace Azofustari’s defenders in advance. Many belong to the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian unit originating from the far-right militia, and Russia has accused it of abusing Nazis and Russian speakers.

“I didn’t know that English had many ways to express a single message. # Azovnazis unconditionally surrendered,” tweeted Russia’s UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky.

TASS news outlets reported that a Russian commission plans to ask soldiers questions as part of an investigation into what Moscow calls a “Ukrainian government crime.”

Leonid Slutsky, one of Russia’s negotiators in negotiations with Ukraine, called the evacuated fighters “human-shaped animals” and said they should be executed.

(Reports by Natalia Ginets and Max Hander of Kyiv, Reuters journalists in Mariupol’s, additional reports by the Reuters Bureau, written by Peter Graf and Stephen Coates, edited by Grant McCool, Lincoln Feast, Nick McPhee. )