Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, April 21: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Thursday, April 21 that Ukraine’s Mariupol has been “successfully liberated.”
Instead of attacking the Azovstal steel complex, Putin has ordered his troops to lay siege to it.
President Vladimir Putin praised Russia’s “liberation” of Mariupol after his defence minister stated that Moscow now controls the city, except for the Azovstal steel factory, where Ukrainian troops remain. Putin said, “Block off this industrial region so that not even a fly can leave.”
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, had said on Tuesday that his country’s forces were “methodically carrying out” preparations to “liberate” two separatist territories in eastern Ukraine. On Thursday, he added that the steel plant had been “securely blocked.”
Russia cannot declare victory in Mariupol without the steel factory. The capture of the city is both strategically and symbolically significant. Since the beginning of the battle in February, the besieged city has seen a lot of suffering.
Russia had acknowledged the “independence” of the Donetsk and Luhansk areas in eastern Ukraine earlier in February. Putin’s army invaded Ukraine on February 24th, not long after.
Since 2014, when the Kremlin utilised proxies to establish separatist “people’s republics” in Luhansk and Donetsk, the coal- and steel-producing Donbas has been at the centre of Russia’s drive to destabilise Ukraine.
(Courtesy: AFP, Reuters)
