Russia claims victory in Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant siege

KYIV/OSLO: Russia claimed victory in a months-long battle for Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, taking it a step nearer to its goal of controlling Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Russia also launched what appeared to be a major assault to seize the last remaining Ukrainian-held territory in Luhansk, one of two provinces that make up the southeastern Donbas region and where Russian-backed separatists already controlled swathes of territory before the Feb. 24 invasion.

The last Ukrainian forces holed up in Mariupol’s smashed Azovstal steelworks surrendered on Friday, Russia’s defense ministry said, ending the bloodiest siege of the war.

“The territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant … has been completely liberated,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that 2,439 defenders had surrendered in the past few days, including 531 in the final group.

Hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s military had told the last defenders at the steelworks they could get out and save their lives. The Ukrainians did not immediately confirm the figures on Azovstal.

Ukraine’s General Staff of Armed Forces did not comment on Russia’s claim in its morning update on Saturday.

The end of fighting in Mariupol, the biggest city Russia has captured so far and the main port for the Donbas, gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a rare victory in the invasion after a series of setbacks in nearly three months of fighting.

Putin says Russian troops are engaged in a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine and rid it of radical anti-Russian nationalists. Western countries call it an unprovoked war of aggression.

Victory in Mariupol gives Russia complete control of the Sea of Azov and an unbroken stretch of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine.

The Red Cross said it had registered hundreds of Ukrainians who surrendered at the Mariupol steel plant as prisoners of war and Kyiv says it wants a prisoner swap. Moscow says the prisoners will be treated humanely, but Russian politicians have been quoted as saying some must be tried or even executed.

Thousands of people in Ukraine have been killed and urban areas have been shattered in the war. Almost a third of Ukraine’s people have fled their homes, including more than 6 million who have left the country.