Russia maintains its harassment in eastern Ukraine after declaring on Friday the “total liberation” of the city of Mariupol (southeast) with the surrender of the last defenders entrenched for weeks in the Azovstal steelworks.
After resisting in precarious conditions in the labyrinth of underground tunnels of this factory, the five hundred Ukrainian fighters who remained there surrendered on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced.
Since Monday, a total of 2,439 fighters surrendered to Moscow troopsending the last pocket of resistance in this port city on the Sea of Azov, devastated by months of bombing.
The Russian Minister of Defense, Serguei Shoigu, communicated to the President Vladimir Putin “the end of the operation and the total liberation of the complex [de Azovstal] and the city of Mariupol,” a spokesman said.
The Ukrainian authorities, who had ordered their soldiers to lay down their arms to “save” their lives, are confident of an exchange of prisoners with Russian soldiers, although the rebel authorities in the region are threatening to put them on trial.
US Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called for “all prisoners of war to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention and the law of war.”
Attacks in Donbas
The capture of Mariupol is key in Moscow’s strategy to conquer eastern and southern Ukraine with this invasion launched on February 24 and plagued by accusations of war crimes by kyiv and Western powers.
The offensive is focused on the eastern region of Donbas, a mining area partially controlled since 2014 by Kremlin-backed separatists, where numerous cities have been plagued by Russian bombardment for weeks.
According to the Russian Defense Minister, his troops are “close to completing” the liberation of Lugansk, one of the two regions along with Donetsk that make up this mining area.
Attempts to attack Donbas continue. They have completely ruined Rubizhne, Volnovakha, just like Mariupol,” Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said on Friday night.
And “they are trying to do the same with Severodonetsk and many other cities,” he added.
According to the governor of that region, 12 people died and another 40 were injured by Russian bombing in this industrial city in the middle of the front, subjected to constant artillery fire.
Further west, in the Kharkov region, where Ukraine claims to be regaining ground, authorities reported eight injuries, including a child, from missiles fired at a cultural center in the city of Lozova.
With more than 12,000 open investigations for war crimes, the Ukrainian justice must issue a verdict on Monday in the first of these cases to come to trial.
On the defendants’ bench sat Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old Russian soldier, who admitted killing an unarmed civilian early in the invasion. “I’m really sorry,” he told the kyiv court.
Gas cut to Finland
The offensive launched by Russia met with fierce resistance from Ukraine, which has strong financial and military backing from the United States and the European Union (EU).
On Thursday, the United States Congress approved an aid package valued at 40,000 million dollars. And the G7, which groups the most industrialized countries, pledged 19.8 billion dollars to support Ukraine.
The conflict threatens to unleash a serious global energy and food crisis.
The two countries at war ensure 30% of world wheat exports and the war has caused grain prices to skyrocket. Russia is also a major energy exporter.
After Western countries imposed a series of sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin warned that their gas supplies would be cut off unless they paid for it in rubles.
After fulfilling its threat in Poland and Bulgaria, Moscow did the same this Saturday morning with Finland, which ran out of gas from its eastern neighbor, said the state company of the Nordic country Gasum.
Gas deliveries to Finland… have been cut off,” Gasum said in a statement, noting that from now on supplies will be via the Balticconnector pipeline from Estonia.
The announcement comes two days after Finland and Sweden, two historically non-aligned countries militarily, applied to join NATO amid regional fears sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Shoigu warned that the Kremlin would respond to an expansion of the transatlantic defense alliance by creating more military bases in western Russia.