ON SUNDAY, the Russian Defence Ministry announced the completion of the operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
On May 5th, 6th and 7th, green corridors operated through which families, women with children and the elderly could go.
As the department reported on May 7th, thanks to the efforts of Russia, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the operation was completed.
‘On May 5th, 51 people left Azovstal, of which 18 were men, 22 women and 11 children; no one left on May 6th, one person left on May 7th,’ said Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Centre for Defence Control of Russia.
‘Everyone is provided with assistance – medical and psychological – people are safe,’ Mizintsev said.
All 52 people were taken to temporary accommodation camps, accompanied by UN and Red Cross staff.
Since March 26, Russia has opened up humanitarian corridors every day from the factory, where the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the fighters of the fascist Azov battalion were located.
However, none of the civilian population left.
On April 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled the assault on the enterprise, and gave the order to block it.
After numerous statements from Ukraine about the presence of civilians at the enterprise, Russia, together with the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, carried out an operation to rescue civilians from April 30 to May 7th.
On May 1st, about 200 people left the plant, of which 25 got out on their own through a destroyed fence.
On May 5th, the militants put forward a demand that they wanted to exchange every 15 civilians for a ton of food and medicine.
According to various sources, by May 5th, there were from 100 to 200 civilians in the plant. All came out on May 7th, as reported by the government of Ukraine.
Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said that ‘all women, children and the elderly’ had been evacuated from Azovstal.
The defence of Mariupol and the military was led by the commander of the brigade of the National Guard, which includes the Azov batallion.
The highest command staff of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian troops – the brigade commander, Hero of Ukraine Colonel Volodymyr Baranyuk, and the chief of staff Colonel Dmitry Kormyankov – was captured after trying to get out of the Azovmash plant, which is located northwest of Azovstal.
Vekoslav Prebek, a captured mercenary from Croatia, said that while fighting for Ukrainian soldiers, he was ordered not to let Mariupol civilians out of the city.
This information is provided in the Telegram channel of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (NM DPR).
The mercenary told how the Ukrainians were equipping positions at the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works. Prebeck recalled that he was not the only foreigner in the detachment, besides him, there were three Britons – who deserted.
‘When we were standing at the plant, we had an order not to let civilians out of Mariupol. The order for this was given by the battalion commander, Bova Evgeny Petrovich. Like, we don’t know who is coming out and what information can be passed on to the enemy’, said Prebeck.
Water will soon be restored in Mariupol. The Starokrymskaya filtering station, destroyed during the active phase of the liberation of the territories, has now been put back into operation.
Providing the population of the liberated regions with heat, electricity and water is one of the priorities of the DPR authorities.
On March 2nd, 2022, the nationalists deliberately fired at the Starokrimskaya filtration station, which supplied water to the residents of Mariupol, Saltan and Starikrim, in order to de-energise the facility and cut off the supply of drinking water to the city. Unfortunately, they succeeded.
The retreating Ukrainian troops mined all important sites, including power transmission towers. Sappers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the DPR cleared the area near the power lines that feed the filtering station.
The length of the section was about 25 kilometres. This allowed the power engineers of the republic to ensure the repair and restoration of this high-voltage line in the shortest possible time.
A division of the State Unitary Enterprise ‘Regional Energy Supply Company’ powered the Starokrymskaya substation and applied voltage to the filter station, after which the station resumed operation. Commissioning is currently underway – this is flushing the system, loading reagents and filling tanks.
‘Difficult, complex work was carried out. The task of the sappers was to clear the mines as quickly as possible, the task of the power engineers was to supply electricity, and the task of the Water of Donbass representatives was to launch a filtration station.
‘Today we did it. We understand that water in the Oktyabrsky district of Mariupol should tentatively appear on May 12-13,’ said Alexei Kostrubitsky, Minister for Emergency Situations of the DPR.
Light should be restored in liberated Mariupol areas in the coming days. Power engineers are already carrying out restoration work on the Azovskaya-Gorod-5 high-voltage line with taps at the Gorod-7 and Gorod-10 substations, which will provide electricity to part of the city.
‘In the coming days, voltage will be applied to the line, which will allow powering part of Mariupol,’ the Ministry of Coal and Energy of the Donetsk People’s Republic said.
The ministry also emphasised that employees of almost all divisions of the Regional Energy Supply Company (REC), as well as the State Backbone Grid Company, are involved in emergency recovery work in the liberated territory.
‘The Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee instructed the investigators to study and record information about another action held in Seversk and Serebryanka of the Donetsk People’s Republic by Ukrainian nationalists in order to discredit the armed forces of the Russian Federation,’ the department’s Telegram channel says.
The Investigative Committee reported that, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence, militants dressed in Russian uniforms in armoured vehicles with the ‘Z’ sign fired at private houses, took away valuables and cars from people, and subjected those who resisted to violence.
It is also reported that foreign journalists filmed ‘staging acts of looting’.
On Saturday night, the Aerospace Forces (VKS) of Russia, using high-precision air-launched missiles, destroyed a number of military facilities on the territory of Ukraine.
According to the official speaker of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Major General Igor Konashenkov, a sea vessel of the Ukrainian Navy, a Project 1241 Molniya missile corvette, was sunk in the Odessa region.
Corvettes carry four anti-ship missiles, and therefore are capable of posing a threat to larger ships.
Russian Armed Forces also shot down a Ukrainian Bayraktar-TB2 drone near Odessa on Sunday night, Konashenkov said.
New footage has emerged from Odessa, where it is confirmed that a missile hit an aircraft factory. The main target of Russian attacks on Odessa was the Odessa Aviation Plant, which repairs and maintains Bayraktar TB2 drones.’ the source said.
It should be remembered that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation do not attack Ukrainian cities. The military infrastructure is being put out of action.
Also on Sunday, the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence reported that high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons at military airfields near the settlements of Artsyz, Odessa and Voznesensk destroyed Ukrainian Air Force aviation equipment, including unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), as well as aviation weapons.
Operational-tactical ‘Iskander’ missile systems near the railway stations of Krasnograd and Karlovka in the Kharkiv region, destroyed large weapons stores and military equipment delivered from the United States and Western countries, as well as personnel from units of the 58th motorised infantry brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, TASS reports.
Russian Aerospace Forces high-precision air-launched missiles hit 42 areas of concentration of manpower and Ukrainian military equipment near the settlement of Volcheyarovka of the LPR, as well as two ammunition depots outside the settlement of Seversk of the DPR.
In total, since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation, 156 aircraft of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 116 helicopters, 765 unmanned aerial vehicles, 297 anti-aircraft missile systems, 2,927 tanks and other armoured combat vehicles, 335 multiple launch rocket systems and 1,393 field artillery pieces have been destroyed, as well as 2,746 units of special military vehicles.
Every day, the Russian military special operations to protect the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics not only eliminate military equipment and weapons, and fight against the nationalists, but also identify saboteurs, forcing the enemy to retreat or voluntarily surrender, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation said on Sunday.
The deputy commander of the regiment, Major Denis Solovyov, at one of the checkpoints of a particularly dangerous area at night, conducted a reconnaissance area using a night vision device and managed to detect and personally detain a Ukrainian saboteur-intelligence officer.
During the initial interrogation, the detainee gave information about the location, number and commander of the reconnaissance and sabotage group of neo-Nazis.
He said that they were preparing a provocation against Russian units. The information promptly obtained by Major Solovyov helped deal with a group of over 15 saboteurs and stop their activities against Russian troops.