The port city in the south-east of the country has been besieged for more than 40 days by the Russian army.
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More than a thousand Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered to Russian forces in Mariupol, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday (April 13th). “In the city of Mariupol, in the area of the Ilyich metallurgical plant (…) 1,026 Ukrainian servicemen of the 36th Marine Brigade voluntarily laid down their arms and surrendered”, the ministry said in a statement, adding that there were 47 women and 126 officers among them. According to this source, 150 of them were injured and were treated at Mariupol hospital.
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I understand that during the fighting, some may surrender”but “what the Russian propaganda says is false, and we do not confirm this information”replied to BFM TV Sergei Orlov, deputy mayor of Mariupol.
During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, a report from Russian public television broadcast on Rossiïa 24 (in Russian) announced the surrender of more than a thousand Ukrainian soldiers in this locality. Footage showed men in camouflage uniforms carrying wounded on stretchers or being interrogated while standing in what appears to be a cellar. On Tuesday, regional authorities in southeastern Ukraine assessed the number of victims in Mariupol, which had been bombed for more than 40 days, at at least 20,000.
The fighting is now concentrated in the gigantic industrial zone of the city. Taking Mariupol would allow the Russians to consolidate their territorial gains on the coastal strip along the Sea of Azov by connecting the Donbass region to the Crimean peninsula, which they annexed in 2014.