Updated on 05/23/2022 at 07:15
- The last defenders of Mariupol surrendered.
- Russia celebrates the surrender as a major war victory.
- Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy tries to defend the biggest defeat so far.
In a video, the Russian Defense Ministry shows the last captured Ukrainian defenders from Mariupol as trophies of victory. Against the backdrop of the Asovstal steel mill, the bearded men are lined up. Their faces are discolored after weeks without sun in the industrial zone bunkers. State television in Moscow praises an “unprecedented operation” – to “liberate” the steel mills and completely take over the strategically important port city.
Russian photos of the men and women are also circulating on the Ukrainian Internet. The joy of your rescue outweighs the sadness of defeat. The loss of the largely destroyed city is Ukraine’s heaviest loss to date in the war that Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin began on February 24.
The city, which once had nearly 500,000 inhabitants, has been seen around the world for weeks as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance against Russia. That’s over now – also because, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the West hasn’t delivered heavy weapons before.
Parents and spouses have been asking for days to rescue the last defenders of Mariupol. The pleas of wives and mothers at press conferences, demonstrations in many countries are ubiquitous on the Internet. On Friday night, Moscow announced that everyone had surrendered and was being attended to. Almost 2,500 Mariupol defenders are said to be in captivity. Your fate remains uncertain.
Mariupol militants face death penalty if accused
Putin promised that they would live if they surrender. Zelenskyy is therefore now firmly committed to a prisoner exchange, as has happened several times in the past. But many Russian politicians are against it, demanding trials to convict “Nazi criminals”.
Russian media took advantage of the moment when the last men and women left the factory to once again classify them as “neo-Nazis”. They have to undress in front of the cameras, tattoos can be seen, skulls, Celtic crosses and a swastika, as well as a “black sun”, supposedly the identifying symbol of nationalists. If charged with war crimes, prisoners in the pro-Russian separatist-controlled Donetsk Oblast, where Mariupol is located, face the death penalty.
Mariupol is of great symbolic importance to the National Guard Regiment “Azov”, founded by neo-Nazis and nationalists and still dominated by them today. According to the unit’s founding myth, the unit, which was founded by volunteers in early May 2014, liberated the port city, then controlled by separatists, less than a month later. “Azov” had already lost its base in the nearby port city of Berdyansk.
Coast of the Sea of Azov completely in Russian hands
But the city is also the last point on the coast of the Sea of Azov that is now completely controlled by Russian forces. This means that the breakaway republics of Luhansk and Donzek, recognized by Russia, can remain independent. They have access to the world’s oceans – and can export their produce independently of Russian land routes via the cheap waterway through the region’s largest well-developed port.
Read too: All current information about the war in Ukraine on the live ticker
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the “enemy” has already started clearing mines to make the port operational again. The military leadership in Kiev assumes that pro-Russian forces, with Moscow’s help, are now stepping up their advance in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions to wrest the entire Donbass completely from Ukrainian control. They are also concerned about a fixed land connection with the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea, annexed by Russia in 2014.
Persistent resistance in Mariupol to the invasion of Moscow has long ensured that a Russian contingent of up to 20,000 troops is tied up with heavy equipment, according to Ukrainian sources. These Russian soldiers could now bring the decisive advantage to the halt offensive towards Slovjansk or the surrounding pocket in Sievjerodonetsk.
Zelenskyy brings prisoner swap into play
In Kiev, however, nobody wants to talk about defeat. “Don’t break Azovstal’s Ukrainian defenders, heroes. Thank you!” Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Japarova said on the day of the capitulation. Commander Azov, Denys Prokopenko, held out for a long time. “Don’t make defecting heroes and fighters who voluntarily went into captivity,” says the 30-year-old recently in one of his videos.
Officials have repeatedly publicly criticized that the Ukrainian leadership is doing too little to free Mariupol. Head of State Zelenskyy, on the other hand, protested Saturday in a televised interview on the third anniversary of his inauguration in the presence of his wife Olena that he had done everything. He spoke with Turkey, Switzerland, Israel and France, which have a connection to the Russian leadership, “to give our military the appropriate weapons so that we can use military means to get to Mariupol to fight these people freely.” Did little.
Other events now depend on the United Nations, the Red Cross and Russia, emphasizes Zelenskyy. There should be a prisoner exchange. “We’ll take you home.” (mt/dpa)
Updated on 5/21/2022 at 12:28 pm
Fears of an escalation of the war in Ukraine are growing – also and especially in neighboring Poland. More and more people want to get a gun license so they can defend their country in an emergency. (Photo credit: picture Alliance/dpa/Doris Heimann)