The situation in Mariupol. File photoMOSCOW, April 7About 3-3.5 thousand militants remain on the territory of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, said the representative of the People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic Eduard Basurin. «How many militants are there (on the territory of the Azovstal plant) … We assume that there are about 3 -3.5 thousand. But you still need to take into account the fact that the residents of Mariupol, some of them took weapons, so the number can be much higher,» he said on the air of «Russia 1».
The journalist spoke about the critical situation in Mariupol 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 allied forces of the Russian Federation and the DPR are fighting for the final liberation of the city. Among other Ukrainian units, they are resisted by the nationalist Azov regiment, against whose fighters a criminal case has been initiated in the Russian Federation. 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. In the DPR, Ukrainian troops were driven out of Volnovakha, a strategically important regional center south of Donetsk; there are battles for Mariupol, the largest city on the coast of the Sea of Azov. In the LPR, according to the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense on March 25, 93% of the territory of the former Lugansk region was taken under control.
