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Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov. File photoMOSCOW, May 3.The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, turned to the commander of the neo-nationalist Azov battalion (against whose militants a criminal case was initiated in Russia), hiding in the basements of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, and urged him to show himself on the battlefield. «I appeal to the commander of Azov, who is in the Azovstal bunker. Aren't you ashamed to keep the sick, women, old people? Go out on the field, let's show yourself. Let's finish once and for all!» Kadyrov said in a video posted on his Telegram channel. At the time of the proclamation of the DPR in 2014, Mariupol, with a population of about 450,000 people, was the second city of the republic after Donetsk, but in June of that year, 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. 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 (against whose militants a criminal case was initiated in Russia). The remnants of the Ukrainian group are blocked at the Azovstal metallurgical plant. On Monday, a representative of the interior troops of the DPR Ministry of Internal Affairs told RIA Novosti that the Ukrainian side had broken the silence regime at the Azovstal Mariupol plant, shelling began from their positions on the territory of the plant, the DPR military had to respond. 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 Kyiv 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.