More than 1,000 Ukrainian marines have surrendered in Mariupol, Russia’s key strategic goal in the eastern Donbas region, which has been reduced to ruins but is not yet under Russian control, the Russian defense ministry said on Wednesday.
If the Russians take control of the Azovstal industrial district, where the marines are holed up, they will have complete control of Mariupol, Ukraine’s main Sea of Azov port, allowing Russia to reinforce a land corridor between separatist-held eastern Ukraine and the Crimea region, which it seized and annexed in 2014.
Mariupol, which has been surrounded and bombarded by Russian troops for weeks and has been the scene of some of the war’s most intense combat, would be the first major city to fall since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that 1,026 marines, including 162 officers, had surrendered.
“As a result of successful offensives by Russian armed forces and Donetsk People’s Republic militia groups near the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works, 1,026 Ukrainian soldiers of the 36th Marine Brigade willingly laid down arms and surrendered,” the ministry said in a statement.
Russian soldiers were continuing their bombardment on Azovstal and the port, according to Ukraine’s general staff, but a spokesperson for the defense ministry said he had no information about any capitulation.
Flames billowed from the Azovstal neighborhood on Tuesday, according to journalists accompanying Russian-backed separatists.
The 36th Marine Brigade announced on Monday that its troops had run out of ammunition and were ready for a decisive struggle in Mariupol that would end in death or capture.
Thousands of people are estimated to have died in Mariupol, and Russian soldiers have been massing in the area in preparation for a new attack, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine claims that tens of thousands of civilians are besieged within the city with no way to get food or water, and Russia is obstructing assistance convoys.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader and a staunch supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has urged the remaining Ukrainians in Azovstal to surrender.
“At the moment, there are roughly 200 wounded in Azovstal who are unable to obtain medical treatment,” Kadyrov said in a Telegram message. “It would be better for them and everyone else if they stopped resisting and went home to their families.”
On Tuesday, Russian media broadcast images of what it claimed were marines surrendering at the Illich Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol, many of whom were wounded.
It showed Ukrainian soldiers marching down a road with their hands in the air, according to the video. A Ukrainian passport was seen in the hands of one of the troops.
Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, said there was a high risk that Russia would use chemical weapons in its attack on the country, echoing earlier warnings from Zelensky, who told the Estonian parliament by videolink on Wednesday that Russia was using phosphorus bombs to terrorize civilians.
He provided no evidence, and reporters were unable to independently verify his claim.
The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 prohibits the creation, use, and stockpiling of chemical weapons. Despite the fact that human rights organizations have criticized it, white phosphorous is not prohibited.
Russia denies employing chemical weapons, claiming that its last stockpiles were destroyed in 2017.
Moscow’s intervention into Ukraine, the worst attack on a European state since 1945, has displaced over 4.6 million people, killed or maimed thousands, and further isolated Russia on the international stage.
Since the invasion began, 191 children have been killed and 349 have been injured, according to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office.
According to the Kremlin, a “special military operation” has been initiated to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine. That is rejected by Kyiv and its Western supporters as a basis for an unjustified invasion.
IN KYIV, FOUR PRESIDENTS
According to the Polish leader’s office, the presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have arrived in Kyiv to meet with Zelensky. Estonian President Alar Karis had already tweeted that his country was extending diplomatic and military assistance.
Since Russian forces were forced out of Ukraine’s north, a growing number of European officials have visited the Ukrainian capital.
For the first time, US President Joe Biden declared Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine amounted to genocide, while Putin vowed Russia will continue its operation “rhythmically and calmly” to achieve its objectives.
According to the US ambassador to the OSCE, an early assessment by a mission of specialists sent by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) shows a “history of inhumanity” by Russian troops in Ukraine.
In a statement, Michael Carpenter said, “This includes proof of direct targeting of civilians, attacks on medical institutions, rape, executions, looting, and forcible deportation of residents to Russia.”
Russia has denied targeting civilians and claims that allegations of war crimes made by Ukraine and the West are false.
Many cities in northern Ukraine where Russia has withdrawn were littered with the bodies of residents slaughtered in a campaign of murder, torture, and rape, according to Kyiv.
The Kyiv district police head was quoted by Interfax Ukraine news agency on Wednesday as claiming that 720 bodies had been discovered in the territory surrounding the capital, with more than 200 persons still missing.
Russian forces continue to assault civilian infrastructure in the Kharkiv region in the northeast and the Zaporizhzhia region in central Ukraine, according to the General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
According to Governor Oleh Synegubov, at least seven people have been killed and 22 have been injured in Kharkiv in the last 24 hours. He added in an online post that a 2-year-old boy was among those killed in the 53 artillery or rocket attacks carried out by Russian forces in the region. The information could not be independently verified by reporters.
