MOSCOW, Mar 31DPR troops shot down two Mi-8 helicopters that were trying to evacuate the commanders of the nationalist Azov regiment from Mariupol, Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, said. According to him, the Kyiv regime made such an attempt on the morning of March 31. of the People's Militia complex of the Donetsk Republic from the captured American Stinger complex, one Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down and crashed near the village of Rybatskoye,» Konashenkov said. The second Ukrainian helicopter, as the general specified, «was damaged by a missile, evaded towards the sea , but crashed 20 kilometers from the coast».
The head of the DPR ordered the creation of the administration of the city of Mariupol. Earlier, Ramzan Kadyrov said that the city had already been liberated by 90-95 percent. When the DPR was proclaimed 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 the same year, the Ukrainian security forces regained control over him. On March 7, 2022, Alexander Semyonov, deputy commander of the Vostok battalion of the DPR, said that the city was surrounded, and a cleansing of certain areas had begun. Among other Ukrainian units in Mariupol is the nationalist regiment «Azov». On February 24, Russian units launched a special military operation to demilitarize Ukraine. Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» According to the Ministry of Defense, the armed forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops, and by March 25 they had completed the main tasks of the first stage — they significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal of the operation in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass. *A criminal case was opened against the fighters of the battalion in Russia
