The most brutal siege of the Ukrainian War ended on Monday (16), with the beginning of the withdrawal of the last defenders of Mariupol, who resisted against Russian forces since the beginning of the conflict, 82 days ago.
Five buses participated in the operation throughout the day, in a coordinated way between Kiev and the Russians. The 53 most seriously injured were taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk, a city occupied by Moscow 32 km from the Azovstal steelworks complex, where the Ukrainians were hiding in appalling conditions.
Another 211 soldiers went to Olenivka, a city under the control of Russian-speaking separatists from Donbass, eastern Ukraine. All are eligible to be exchanged for Russian POWs, although there are doubts about the future of those belonging to the Azov Battalion – which shared the local resistance with a garrison of Marines.
A neo-Nazi-inspired unit that fought in the 2014 and 2015 civil war, the Azov is part of the Ukrainian National Guard. All Russian warmongering propaganda is based on the idea that it is necessary to “denazify” the neighbor, with the fanciful premise that the entire political and military system of Ukraine is fascist.
The military command in Kiev ordered an end to combat operations in Mariupol, a truism, given that only the shelled and shelled defenders in Azovstal remained. The city has been under Russian control since last month, but resistance continued. In recent weeks, civilians have been evacuated from the site.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s government sought to treat the defeat as an example of heroism. “Ukraine needs its heroes alive,” the president said, commenting on the operation to evacuate the wounded. It is not yet known the exact contingent to participate in the evacuation: there are reports that 600 soldiers came to hide in the steel mill.
The Russian victory is of great symbolism in a war in which its failures have drawn attention, such as the withdrawal from Kiev and, now, Kharkiv. Mariupol was a thriving city and home to the main port on the Sea of ​​Azov, a separate stretch of the Black Sea that bordered much of the Ukrainian coast. Now, the entire region from the Donbass to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Vladimir Putin in 2014, is under Moscow’s control.
Mariupol has been turned into a ruin, with the local municipality estimating 90% of buildings damaged and perhaps 20,000 dead, among more than 400,000 pre-war residents. There were notorious attacks, such as the destruction of a theater and a maternity hospital. Nobody knows the exact numbers. Russian soldiers from Chechnya, known for their ferocity, were on the front lines of the siege there.
Ukrainian resistance was made possible by the large network of tunnels and bunkers within the complex, designed in Soviet times to withstand even a nuclear attack. Without water, food or reinforcements, however, she became impossible. “They are in hell. They are without legs and arms, exhausted, without medicine,” Natalia Zariskaia, the wife of an Azov soldier, told Reuters earlier in the day.
Local force commanders complained, on at least two occasions, of having been left to fend for themselves by Kiev. They also criticized what they called insufficient preparation for war in the city.
