Barricaded and ready to fire the last bullet, they have already announced that they will never give up. You are the military of the Azov battalion and the marines of the 36th Ukrainian brigade, aware that they have no way out in a report from “Ten to One” with Russian troops, as the commander explained Serhiy Volynathe resistance fighters in the steel mills Azovstal out of Mariupolthe last fortress to be defended before the city of martyrs chapter final. The iron and steel industry has become the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the ordered invasion Wladimir Putinon the one hand because of the nature of the facility a labyrinth of bunkers and blast furnaces suitable for a “city war” and on the other hand because of the need for Moscow to capture it at all costs, since Azov’s men are defending it, sympathetic group neonaziswhose destruction at home would make minimal sense “Denazification” used as a catchphrase of “military special operations”.
But how many Ukrainian fighters are there in Azovstal? And are you alone? According to Russian estimates, it is about defending the steel industry 2,500 military between Azov battalion and marines of 36th brigade. You would add about 400 foreign volunteers arrived in Ukraine in the last few weeks. Moscow would have piled up instead 12,000 soldiers. And obviously can have air support and Navy to bombard the approximately 11 square kilometer area of the steel mills. A tremendous superiority that would be even more overwhelming, according to Volyna in a video released on Wednesday evening. The commander of the 36th Brigade spoke of a “ten to one” ratio. If you took his words for granted, then the Russians would get around 30,000 soldiers o Moscow’s estimates of the number of soldiers defending Azovstal are inflated and therefore inside they would not find more than 1,500 fighters.
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Azovstal Steel Works, the last Ukrainian fortress in Mariupol: between labyrinths and blast furnaces, here is the scene of the last battle
What is certain, however, is that they can also be found in steelworks civilians. Many speak of hundreds of people, some dare thousands. Impossible to independently determine why they found Protection in the area of the final battle for Mariupol. They’ve been fighting on their skin for days exchange of allegations between Moscow and Kyiv. For the Russians, the Azov Battalion uses them as “Human Shields”while Ukrainians argue that so far i humanitarian corridors they were in fact impossible because the fighting never stopped. In the same video in which he announced that the resistance could last hours or days at most, Volyna called for the evacuation of women and children to third countries, while the mayor of Mariupol announced a new agreed corridor attempt to Zaporizhia Vadim Boychenko explained that i 90 buses available also stops near the steel mill. “During these long and incredibly difficult days, it is you survivor in inhumane conditions,” the mayor commented, referring to the citizens, recalling that the population has spent these days” in information vacuumwithout access to any information”.
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his assistant Pyotr AndrushchenkoHe told the New York Times that “many” of the people locked up in the Azovstal bunkers “wanted to avoid being shifted or deported, then they found shelter with our troops, in the basement of the factory”. Corresponding Galina Yatsuraspeaker for MetinvestThe owner of the facility also stayed in one “Specific number of employees” that he continued to work on preparing the airraid shelters after the invasion began. According to two workers at the smelting giant, there were over 2,000 people in the first days of the siege and many family members stayed behind. “Since the initial invasion, we have kept the bunkers in good condition and stocked with food and water,” Yatsura told the NYT, explaining inside underground from Azovstal can find up to shelter 4 thousand people and that the bunkers have a capacity of warehouse of food and water for three weeks. Restrained, illinformed, remained voluntarily, perhaps due to family ties among the fighters: differing, often conflicting, versions that provide possible explanations for a significant civilian presence on the scene of the final battle to capture a first strategic objective in Moscow.