Ukraine wants its last defenders in Mariupol to fight “until the end”, contradicting the ultimatum launched by Russia this Sundaywhich called on the Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms in this strategic port city from the southeast of the country. The Russian Defense Ministry said it estimated that some 2,500 Ukrainian fighters and 400 foreign “mercenaries,” most from European countries, are the last to resist the capture of Mariupol, all of them entrenched in a huge steel production plant under which runs a vast network of tunnels.
“The city has not fallen. Our military forces, our soldiers are still there. They will fight to the end”assured Denys Shmygal, the Ukrainian prime minister, in an interview with the US network ABC. The prime minister’s remarks come shortly after Moscow’s ultimatum expired, which called on the last Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in a huge Mariupol metallurgical complex to give up the fight and leave before 1 p.m. on Sunday. In parallel, The Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) surprised by calling on its followers to coordinate attacks in Europe taking advantage of the war in Ukraine.
The Russian military command assured that the kyiv government forbade its soldiers, surrounded in the Azvovstal steel plant, to surrender under penalty of being shot. “The nationalist regime in kyiv, according to intercepted communications, has prohibited surrender negotiations and ordered the Nazi Azov regiment to shoot foreign soldiers and mercenaries who want to surrender,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
The demand for surrender had very few signs of being met by the Ukrainian military, which is resisting the Russian troops and the militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, recognized by Moscow as an independent state. Already this Saturday the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilinhad pointed out that the nationalist battalions remaining in Mariupol “have no intention of surrendering and therefore must be annihilated”.
The conquest of Mariupol, where the situation is “inhumane” according to Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski, would mean an important victory for Moscow. With 440,000 inhabitants before the war, it represents the last obstacle to guaranteeing Russian control in the maritime strip that goes from the pro-Russian separatist territories of Donbass to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014. Russia claims to control almost the entire city, something Ukraine denies.
Zelensky pointed out that there were only “two options” for Mariupol: the supply from Western countries of “all the necessary weapons” to break the long siege of the city or “the path of negotiation” in which “the role of the allies must be equally decisive.” The Ukrainian president told the US channel CNN in an interview that he invited French President Emmanuel Macron to visit Ukraine to see with his own eyes that Russian forces are committing “genocide.”
Putin “thinks he will win the war”
According to Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammerwho met with Vladimir Putin almost a week ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he is winning the war that started on February 24. Shmygal, the Ukrainian prime minister, rejected these claims by the Russian leader, recalling that “not a single big city” in Ukraine had fallen.
The creation of humanitarian corridors in some areas remains a real puzzle. The Ukrainian authorities reported this Sunday that in the absence of an agreement with the Russians for a ceasefire, they suspended the evacuation of civilians from the east of the country for 24 hours. “This morning, we failed to negotiate a ceasefire on the evacuation routes with the Russian occupiers. For this reason, unfortunately, we are not going to open humanitarian corridors,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
Retarget the campaign
Although it reoriented its military campaign to the east and south, Russia has bombed the capital again in recent days after the sinking of its flagship in the Black Sea, the cruiser Moskva, which Ukraine claims to have hit with Neptune anti-ship missiles. Moscow denies this version and attributes the sinking to a fire.
This Sunday’s attack on a military factory near kyiv was preceded on Friday by the bombing of a factory also near the capital where the Neptune missiles were produced. In the east, where the next great battle of this war is foreseen, a series of attacks left five dead and 20 wounded in Kharkovthe second largest city in the country. “You know when a dog hears a ‘boom’ and his whole body starts shaking even though the noise is far away? Now I’m like this”said Zinaida Nestrizhenko69, huddled by a Kharkov road with her cat.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that “high-precision missiles destroyed fuel and ammunition depots” in Barvinkove (Izum region) and Dobropillia (Donetsk region), also in the east. And around Luhansk, “the constant shelling of the region continues,” its Ukrainian governor, Sergei Gaidai, said on Sunday. In the town of Zolote “they deliberately attacked a five-story building, two people died and five were injured,” Gaidai added.
Buy time to ask NATO for help
Although not directly involved in the conflict, NATO members have provided extensive arms support to Ukraine which is increasing as the war progresses. Russia warned in a diplomatic note to the United States against sending “more sensitive” weapons to Ukraine, which put “fuel on the fire” and could cause “unforeseeable consequences,” according to the Washington Post.
The President of the Russian Duma, Viacheslav Volodin accused the Ukrainian president of using negotiations with Moscow to buy time and ask NATO for military help.. “Zelensky has stated that Ukraine is ready to discuss with Russia its withdrawal from NATO and the status of Crimea, but only after military actions cease and Russian troops leave Ukrainian territory,” the Russian lawmaker wrote on his Twitter account. Telegram.
Volodin added that the Ukrainian president expressed himself in the same terms before the negotiations at the end of March in Istanbul, Turkey, when Russian troops were at the gates of kyiv, which led Russia to reduce its military activity in that zone. Then, Volodin noted, “kyiv retracted the commitments it had assumed” and “today proposes the same scenario”. For the Russian legislator, “the cause is obvious: he wants to buy time and simultaneously asks NATO for military help.”
ISIS calls for attacks in Europe
As if the military conflict were missing new protagonists, this Sunday the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) called on his followers to carry out attacks in Europe and launched a military campaign in revenge for the deaths of former leader Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al Qurashi and spokesman Abu Hamza al Qurashi.
“Taking the good example of our brothers in Beit al Maqdis (Israel) for their blessed operation a few days ago, now they have the opportunity. Europe is burning and the crusaders are killing each other“, affirmed the new spokesman of the organization, Abu Omar al Muhagerin a 33-minute audio message broadcast through his audiovisual production company Al Furqan on the occasion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“The crusaders’ fear of war clearly appeared in Europe and the United States when it reached their territories,” al-Muhager said, adding that “the pride and barbarity of the Russians and their attempts to regain the glory of the Soviet Union and polarize the world forced Europeans and Americans to go to war and involve others so they don’t pay the price alone”.