Smoke over the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. File photoDONETSK, Apr 20The military of the People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on Wednesday organized humanitarian corridors from the territory of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, with their help 127 people were evacuated, the People's Militia of the DPR reports. corridors. 127 people used the opportunity to evacuate from the criminal fire of the nationalists, who are currently in a safe place for life — the settlement of Bezymennoye,» the representative office said in its Telegram channel.
A drone filmed the territory of the Azovstal plant before the announcement of the silence regime On Tuesday, a representative of the DPR law enforcement agency told RIA Novosti that the republic’s units had taken 120 residents of Mariupol to a safe place, who were hiding in basements near the Azovstal checkpoint. 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. The official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said on April 16 that the entire city territory had been cleared of the Ukrainian army, foreign mercenaries and neo-Nazis from the Azov regiment (against whose militants a criminal case was initiated in Russia). 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.
