Residents of Mariupol evacuated from the cityROSTOV-ON-DON, Mar 14, Yulia Nasulina.Over the past 24 hours, more than 60 civilians from Mariupol and its suburbs were able to leave this territory and cross the border of the Russian Federation in the Rostov region, a source in the emergency services of the Russian region told RIA Novosti. «Over the past day, 63 people left Mariupol and its suburbs for the Rostov region,» — said the source of the agency. He clarified that we are talking about civilians. The headquarters of the territorial defense of the Donetsk People's Republic on Monday morning reported that over the past day, 86 people, including 15 children, were evacuated from Mariupol and its suburbs to Bezymennoe, Novoazovsky district. At the time of the proclamation of the DPR in 2014, Mariupol with a population of about 450 thousand people was the second largest city in the republic after Donetsk. However, in June of that year, the Ukrainian security forces regained control of Mariupol, and its eastern suburbs became one of the hottest places of conflict in Ukraine. On March 7, 2022, Alexander Semyonov, deputy commander of the Vostok battalion of the DPR, said that the largest city on the Azov coast was completely surrounded, and its individual areas were being cleared. The nationalist regiment «Azov» is located in Mariupol, against whose fighters a criminal case has been initiated in the Russian Federation. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive. But the occupation of Ukraine is out of the question, the President of Russia emphasized.
