Fighting for Mariupol is not over, foreign legion commander says, despite Russian claims that more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines have surrendered.

Russia has claimed that more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines have surrendered in the southern city of Mariupol, but there were mixed views on whether the devastating seven-week battle for control of the strategic port in the Sea of ​​Azov was ongoing.

Ukraine did not confirm the surrender on Wednesday, saying two units of its forces still in the city managed to link up. Mamuka Mamulashvili, the commander of the Georgian Legion, a battalion of volunteer fighters, told The Globe and Mail that his unit had troops “near Mariupol” who were still fighting.

Mamulashvili said he also had friends among the Ukrainian forces hiding in the huge Azovstal steel factory. He said that he had talked to them in the last few days and that he didn’t think they had given up.

“I would know,” he said when asked if the battle for Mariupol was over, though he did not discuss the number of fighters still holding out.

“They have not given up. There are still Ukrainian army forces and Georgians there.”

Mariupol has been the scene of some of the worst civilian suffering of the war since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion on February 24.

While more than half of the city’s pre-war population is believed to have fled, aid organizations say some 160,000 people have been trapped in the city and left without regular supplies of food, water or electricity. since mid-March.

The Ukrainian government says at least 22,000 people have been killed in Mariupol and 80 to 90 percent of all buildings are believed to have been damaged or destroyed.

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On March 16, Russian forces bombed the city’s Drama Theater as hundreds of civilians sheltered inside.

Civilian convoys have also been repeatedly prevented from leaving the city, with local authorities saying tens of thousands of residents have instead been forcibly deported to Russia.

This week, Mariupol was also the site of the first suspected use of chemical weapons, possibly phosphorus munitions, by Russian forces, though Western and Ukrainian officials say that cannot be confirmed because the site is not accessible to investigators.

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden called Russia’s actions in Ukraine “genocide” for the first time, referring to apparent war crimes committed across the country. “Putin is just trying to eliminate the idea of ​​being Ukrainian,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Biden’s comments “unacceptable.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed them as “true words from a true leader.”

Mr. Biden made his comments after Russia’s withdrawal from the outskirts of kyiv revealed the mass murder, organized rape and widespread destruction committed during the month that satellite towns such as Bucha and Borodyanka were under Russian occupation.

Ukrainian officials believe that the worst has happened in Mariupol. Svyatoslav Yurash, a deputy from Mr. Zelensky’s Servant of the People party and a member of the parliamentary foreign relations committee, told The Globe that he believed an “unimaginable” number of people had been killed in the city.

He said it was unclear if the fight for the city was over.

“The reality now is that Mariupol is the site of a heroic battle. Our troops there show us how to resist, how to fight to the last soldier,” Mr. Yurash said.

Major General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian army, told the official Tass news service that 162 officers and 47 women were among the 1,059 Ukrainian marines who “voluntarily laid down their arms and surrendered in the area of ​​the factory. Ilyicha metals in the city of Mariupol.”

Russian state television showed images of dozens of men in military uniforms walking with their hands up, while others were carried on stretchers.

The Russian Defense Ministry later said that the industrial port of Mariupol was now under full control.

The claims were made two days after a post on the Ukrainian 36th Marine Brigade’s Facebook page criticized its military leadership for leaving the unit, which the post suggested would soon be unable to continue fighting. “For more than a month, the Marines fought without replenishing ammunition, without food, without water, drinking from a puddle and dying in batches,” the publication says.

The head of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency told The Globe that efforts to resupply the remaining Ukrainian troops in Mariupol were difficult but ongoing.

“The situation in Mariupol is the most complicated situation in Ukraine at the moment, Major General Kyrylo Budanov said. “Each resupply of the forces defending Mariupol is a special operation that demonstrates the heroism of our warriors.”

Capturing Mariupol would be a huge win for Russia, as it would give it full control of the Sea of ​​Azov and an unbroken stretch of territory between its own border and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia captured and annexed in 2014. It would also give Russia his army his first chance. significant victory in the Ukraine since an attempt to capture the capital failed. Russian troops withdrew from the kyiv region in late March after a month-long battle.

Mariupol is the largest port in the Donbas region, which Putin formally recognized as “independent” from Ukraine in February. One of Russia’s declared war goals is to “liberate” all of Donbas, a goal that has become important to Moscow after the failure to take kyiv.

The fall of Mariupol would also free Russian forces to fight on other fronts. On Tuesday, Putin said the war would continue until all of Russia’s goals in Ukraine were achieved.

Putin has claimed, despite the fact that Zelensky is Jewish and that far-right groups have done poorly in elections, that Ukraine is under “Nazi” control and needs to be demilitarized.

The Ukrainian fighters who held out at the Azovstal steel factory were mainly members of the Azov Battalion, a unit infamous for wearing far-right insignia. Destroying the battalion, which has around 900 members, is another declared Russian war goal.

The Kremlin-controlled media also accused the Georgian Legion of war crimes after a video surfaced last month showing the roadside execution of at least one Russian soldier who was wounded and with his hands tied. Mamulashvili said Wednesday that the fighters in the video, at least one of whom has been identified as Georgian, were not members of his unit.

He said the Georgian Legion, consisting of some 700 Georgian troops, along with a few other international volunteers, was, like the regular Ukrainian army, redirecting forces previously deployed around kyiv south toward Mariupol now that Russia had withdrawn. his army around the capital. He said that Mariupol could still be freed from Russian control.

“It is possible, and we will do it.”

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