A car near the destroyed bridge between the villages of Sartana and Kalinovka in the suburbs of Mariupol. Archival photoMARIUPOL, March 17 Units of the Donetsk People's Republic are checking men leaving Mariupol for signs of participation in hostilities, a RIA Novosti correspondent reports. residents, units of the DPR check men, in particular, for traces of weapons and long-term wearing of ammunition. They are also checked for tattoos identifying their affiliation with the Ukrainian armed forces or nationalist battalions. Wednesday, the head of the National Center for Defense Management of the Russian Federation, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, said that almost all the evacuated residents of Mariupol refused to go to the territories controlled by Kiev. 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 abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» To this end, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine» bloody crimes against civilians» of Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the Russian President emphasized. evacuation from Mariupol, Russia and Ukraine are trying to negotiate
