Ukrainian militants at Azovstal are in a stalemate, Pushilin said

Smoke over the Azovstal plant in MariupolMOSCOW, Apr 19The militants of the Azov nationalist battalion (against whom a criminal case has been initiated in Russia), surrounded by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the DPR at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, are in a stalemate, said the head of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin. «Here they have a stalemate: on the one hand, they have a command from Kyiv — to hold on, not to give up in any case, or they will be subject to certain repressions.On the other hand, they are well aware that if they lay down their arms and leave in our direction, then we have a clear understanding that these are war criminals and they are subject to certain punishment, courts and tribunals,» Pushilin said on the air of the Rossiya 24 TV channel. «It's hard to say whether they understand and are aware of this. Surely the leadership understands and is trying to find some options, but they have no other chance than to lay down their arms and stay alive,» the head of the DPR said.Zelensky: the destruction of the military in Mariupol will put an end to the negotiationsOn Tuesday, the Russian Armed Forces offered the Ukrainian nationalist militants and foreign mercenaries who settled in the Azovstal plant to surrender at 12.00 Moscow time, a special algorithm is provided for this. At the time of the proclamation of the DPR in 2014, Mariupol with a population of about 450 thousand people was the second city of the republic after Donetsk, but in June of the same year, the Ukrainian security forces regained control of Mariupol. On March 7, 12 days after the start of the Russian special operation to demilitarize Ukraine, the deputy commander of the Vostok battalion, Alexander Semyonov, announced that the city was surrounded, and a cleansing of its individual districts had begun. Currently, the allied forces of the DPR and Russia are fighting for the final liberation of the city. On April 16, the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, announced that the entire city territory had been cleared of the Ukrainian army, foreign mercenaries and neo-Nazis from the Azov regiment. The remnants of the Ukrainian group are blocked at the Azovstal plant. 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 Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and, as of March 25, they have completed the main tasks of the first stage — they have significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass. What is happening at the walls of «Azovstal»