A residential building in Mariupol destroyed as a result of shellingDONETSK, March 31 Ukrainian security forces will not be given a corridor to leave Mariupol, RIA Novosti was told by the representative of the people's militia of the Donetsk People's Republic, Eduard Basurin.
"They have already been made such an offer, they refused. Therefore, they are considered to be no longer militants, they are criminals. Because they were killing civilians. Yes, we guarantee to keep them alive, but I don’t think we will let them go", he told RIA Novosti.
At the time of the proclamation of the DPR 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 that year, the Ukrainian security forces regained control of Mariupol, and its eastern suburbs became one of the hottest places of conflict in Ukraine. 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 some of its districts had begun. Currently, the Russian military and people's militia of the DPR are engaged in the liberation of the city. Among other Ukrainian units in Mariupol are militants from the Azov nationalist regiment, against whose fighters a criminal case has been initiated in Russia. weapons and ammunition. Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk rejected this proposal. Russia launched a special 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 Donbas. .jpg» /> The Ministry of Defense announced the crimes of «flying death squads» in Kharkov