Mariupol appeared on the verge of falling to Russia on Tuesday as Ukraine moved to abandon the steel plant where hundreds of its fighters had held out for months under relentless bombardment in the last bastion of resistance in the devastated city.
Key points:
- Ukrainian authorities are still trying to extract remaining soldiers from the plant
- Both Ukraine and Russia say they were victorious in Mariupol
- The International Criminal Court has sent 42 investigators to Ukraine to search for evidence of war crimes
The capture of Mariupol would make it the biggest city to be taken by Moscow’s forces yet and would give the Kremlin a badly needed victory, though the landscape has largely been reduced to rubble.
More than 260 fighters – some of them seriously wounded and taken out on stretchers – left the ruins of the Azovstal plant on Monday and turned themselves over to the Russian side in a deal reached by the two warring nations.
Ukrainian authorities said they were working to extract the remaining soldiers from the sprawling steel mill, though how many were still there was unclear.
Russia called the operation a mass surrender.
The Ukrainians avoided using that word and instead said its garrison had completed its mission.
“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in announcing that troops had begun leaving the mill and its warren of Cold War-era tunnels and bunkers.
It was not clear what would happen to the fighters.
A Russian official cast doubt on whether Moscow would hand all of them back to Ukraine in a prisoner of war exchange.
The operation signaled the beginning of the end of a nearly three-month siege that turned Mariupol into a worldwide symbol of both defiance and suffering.
The Russian bombardment killed over 20,000 civilians, according to the Ukrainian side, and left the remaining inhabitants – perhaps one-quarter of the city’s pre-war population of 430,000 – with little food, water, heat or medicine.
Among the sites that Russian forces attacked were a maternity hospital and a theater where civilians had sought shelter. Hundreds were reported killed there.
Gaining full control of Mariupol would give Russia an unbroken land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a vital port.
It could also free up Russian forces for fighting elsewhere in the Donbas, the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin is bent on capturing.
And it would give Russia an important victory after repeated setbacks on the battlefield and diplomatic front, beginning with the abortive attempt to storm Kyiv, the capital.
Ukraine highlighted the role that the Azovstal fighters played in boosting Ukrainian morale and tying up Russian forces who could not be deployed elsewhere.
Ukraine Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar heaped praise on the fighters and said it was impossible to liberate them “by military means.”
(Reuters: Alexander Ermochenko)
Oleksandr Danylyuk, a Ukrainian former national security chief and finance minister, told the BBC that because Ukrainian forces were unable to reach the plant, the negotiated evacuation to Russian-controlled territory had been “the only hope” for Azovstal’s defenders.
A full negotiated withdrawal could save lives on the Russian side, too, sparing its troops from what almost certainly would be a bloody battle to wrest the labyrinth-like plant from Ukrainian control.
The withdrawal could also work to Moscow’s benefit by taking the world’s attention off the suffering in Mariupol.
Retired French Vice Admiral Michel Olhagaray, a former head of France’s center for higher military studies, said Azovstal’s fall would be more of a symbolic boost for Russia than a military one, since “factually, Mariupol had already fallen”.
“Now Putin can claim a ‘victory’ in the Donbas,” Mr Olhagaray said.
But because the Azovstal defenders’ “incredible resistance” tied down Russian troops, Ukraine can also claim that it came out on top.
ICC sends in war crime investigators
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor says he sent a team of 42 investigators, forensic experts and support personnel to Ukraine as part of a probe into suspected war crimes during Russia’s invasion.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said that the team “will significantly enhance the impact of our forensic and investigative actions on the ground”.
Mr Khan says the team will improve the gathering of witness testimony, the identification of forensic materials and help ensure that “evidence is collected in a manner that strengthens its admissibility in future proceedings” at the Netherlands-based court.
Several thousand civilians are believed to have died since Russia’s invasion, but figures are impossible to verify.
Incidents of summary executions and the use of cluster bombs by Russian forces have regularly been reported.
To be classified as crimes against humanity, attacks have to be part of what the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, calls “a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population”.
Mr Khan says that “now more than ever we need to show the law in action” in Ukraine.
Serbian PM makes surprising bomb hoax claim
Serbia’s Prime Minister alleged on Tuesday that nearly 100 bomb threats that have prompted mass evacuations of schools and public venues were part of pressure from abroad over Belgrade’s refusal to sanction Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Emailed threats have been sent to more than 90 schools, and venues including the presidency building, bridges, shopping malls, restaurants, Belgrade’s zoo and a football stadium.
No explosive devices were found when bomb disposal teams searched the locations on Monday and Tuesday.
Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said, without providing evidence or giving further details, that the hoaxes originated from abroad because of Serbia’s stance on Russia.
Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said the bomb hoaxes were part of special warfare against Serbia, adding that the police, which come under his ministry, were investigating.
Serbia, a candidate for EU membership, is almost entirely dependent on gas and oil from Russia, a traditional Orthodox Christian and Slavic ally.
It also maintains close political and military ties with Moscow.
In April, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic accused Ukraine and an unidentified EU country of being behind a series of hoax bomb threats against Air Serbia planes which maintain regular flights to Moscow.
Ukraine dismissed Mr Vucic’s allegations as “baseless”.
AP / Reuters
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