At 5 p.m. yesterday, a column of white smoke rose from the steelworks Mariupol. there Russia For days he has been announcing the final fight against the handful of men who are barricaded in the bunkers and are resisting from Azvostal. The tsar’s troops have issued a new ultimatum, but their ultimate goal is to finally destroy the fortress blocking the capture of the martyred city. This was also reported by the Ukrainian security service, which disseminated wiretapping of a telephone conversation in which a Russian soldier spoke of an order from the leadership to destroy the steel mills. “Despite the higher number, the Russian occupiers cannot capture Ukrainian Mariupol. Therefore write the 007’s Kyiv on telegram they want to raze the steel mill where our fighters hold the defense. The squatters overlook the fact that civilians are also hiding in the facility. The Russians are preparing threeton “surprises” from the sky ».
FAB3000
And the barrels, according to the commander of the Azov regiment, Denys Prokopenko, are the antibunker bombs that the Moscow soldiers have already dropped on the Azovstal steel plant, where hundreds of civilians and members of the nationalist battalion are located. Prokopenko explains in a video message that the Russians used these bombs even though they knew that civilians, especially women with small and older children, were still in the tunnels of the large plant. And last week, the adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andrushchenko, spoke of highexplosive bombs like the FAB3000 that Russian soldiers would use.
The city is a ghost now, destruction everywhere, but until even the last Ukrainian military has abandoned the garrison, Russia cannot claim to have captured it. Local authorities say 40,000 people have been deported to Russia or Russiancontrolled areas of Ukraine. And since February, almost 880,000 people including 164,000 children have arrived on Russian territory and selfproclaimed republics. Moscow does not know to what extent soldiers and special troops are hiding inside the steelworks. In fact, he fears a sudden access, because probably every access road is mined. “In view of the catastrophic situation at the Azovstal metallurgical plant,” reads the proclamation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, published yesterday morning, our armed forces “guided by purely human principles” renew the order “to the fighters of the nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries, “renew their weapons and lay down ammunition, and on the 19th “All those who lay down their arms are guaranteed the preservation of life.” In short, Moscow would have been ready to create some kind of humanitarian corridor to allow a safe exit. And in the evening gave he announced that 120 civilians who were hiding in the facility left after the ultimatum.
«The Mariupol steel plant, Azovstal, is practically destroyed admits the deputy commander of the Azov battalion Sviatoslav Palamar. Heavy bombs are being thrown at the steelworks and many people are lying under the rubble,” he reports on Radio Svoboda. While Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov says on Telegram that «Ukrainian armed forces will soon be completely evacuated from the plant. Tomorrow at the latest (today, editor’s note) we will take full control of Azovstal ».
PHASE 2
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s army is attacking along a 480kilometer front in eastern Ukraine from Kharkiv through Lugansk and Donetsk to Kherson and Mykolaiv as part of a major offensive in a socalled “new phase of the war.” The Kiev General Staff says Russian forces are focusing their efforts on gaining full control of the Donbass region in the east of the country. The Moscow army tried to break through Ukraine’s defenses along almost the entire front line, they specified. But so far, explained Sergiy Gaidai, Lugansk’s regional military administrator, they have only been able to cross two areas: the eastern city of Kreminna, which they have taken over, and another small town. The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that the Russians have begun to ramp up the fullscale attack, with troops attempting to advance into several areas, including from the neighboring Kharkiv region. And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirms that “the second phase of the special operation” has begun. “We are not aiming for regime change in Ukraine,” he adds, “we have said that several times. We want Ukrainians to be free to choose how they live. And no nuclear weapons will be used anyway.”
THE STRATEGY
So it has to be said that the new attack on the country seems to be thought of differently. Russian forces show they have learned from their mistakes in the first phase of the invasion. Even if Pentagon sources quoted by the Washington Post explain problems in the chain of command and in the supply of spare parts remain. According to analyst Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general, the next 48 hours will help to understand: if Moscow’s armed forces make a significant breakthrough, it will be a sign of greater competence. If they don’t, it means they haven’t learned from their mistakes and “Ukrainians are as good as we think”. In preparation for the offensive that had just begun, the Russians accumulated troops and supplies for weeks. “They use heavy artillery, commanders and air traffic controllers, aviation, especially helicopter support,” notes a senior Pentagon official. Currently, he stresses, the heaviest fighting is taking place around Popasna, a city that was under Ukrainian control before the invasion and lies between the selfproclaimed separatist republics of Lugansk and Donetsk. Apparently, the Russian soldiers want to pull out of the city of Izyum in order to expel the Ukrainian soldiers from the population centers of Popasna and Sloviansk, areas 200 km north of Mariupol that were already fiercely fought over in 2014.
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