The port in Mariupol will be fully operational in three weeks, Pushilin said

Steel at the entrance to the territory of the commercial sea port in Mariupol. Archive photoMARIUPOL, June 12The water supply and electrification of the Mariupol port will be fully restored in 2-3 weeks, said the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin. within 2-3 weeks,” he said. 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 the same year, Ukrainian security forces regained control of Mariupol. On May 20, 2022, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced the liberation of the territory of the Azovstal plant — the underground facilities of the enterprise, in which the Ukrainian military and militants of the Azov regiment were hiding (against whom criminal cases were initiated in the Russian Federation), came under the control of the Russian Armed Forces. In total, according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, since May 16, more than 2.4 thousand Nazis from the Azov Regiment and the Ukrainian military have laid down their arms and surrendered, who were blocked on the territory of the plant for about a month. 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 Kyiv 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 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.