{"id":22168,"date":"2022-05-21T06:20:13","date_gmt":"2022-05-21T06:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=22168"},"modified":"2022-05-21T06:20:13","modified_gmt":"2022-05-21T06:20:13","slug":"moscow-declares-victory-in-battle-for-mariupol-steel-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/05\/21\/moscow-declares-victory-in-battle-for-mariupol-steel-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Moscow declares victory in battle for Mariupol steel plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia has declared victory in its months-long operation to capture Mariupol after\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0ordered the last of its troops holed up in the city\u2019s Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms.<\/p>\n

In what would be its biggest victory yet in the war with Ukraine,\u00a0Russia<\/a>\u00a0claimed to have captured the strategic port after a nearly three-month siege that reduced much of the city to a smoking ruin, with over 20,000 civilians feared dead.<\/p>\n

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin the \u201ccomplete liberation\u201d of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance and the city as a whole, spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Friday.<\/p>\n

Mariupol endured some of the worst suffering of the war and became a worldwide symbol of defiance. There was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s state news agency RIA Novosti quoted the ministry as saying a total of 2,439 Ukrainian fighters who had been holed up at the steelworks had surrendered since Monday, including over 500 on Friday.<\/p>\n

As they surrendered, the troops were taken prisoner by the Russians, and at least some were taken to a former penal colony. Others were said to be hospitalised. Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some of the steel mill\u2019s defenders for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them \u201cNazis\u201d and criminals.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin had sought control of Mariupol to complete a land corridor between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to join the larger battle for the Donbas. The city\u2019s loss also deprives Ukraine of a vital seaport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia has declared victory in its months-long operation to capture Mariupol after\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0ordered the last of its troops holed up in the city\u2019s Azovstal steelworks to lay down their arms. In what would be its biggest victory yet in the war with Ukraine,\u00a0Russia\u00a0claimed to have captured the strategic port after a nearly three-month siege that reduced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":21913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5522,5881,12758,9331,6848,6083,6052,5995,1152,8029,5657,5340,10302,11082,3805,71,3457,5217,3852,12778,9984,5882,11581,9178,5180,5555,10885,694,5251,5761,594,6974],"class_list":["post-22168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-arms","tag-azovstal","tag-captured","tag-city","tag-civilians","tag-dead","tag-defense-minister-sergei-shoigu","tag-donbas","tag-kremlin","tag-land","tag-mariupol","tag-moscow","tag-plant","tag-port","tag-president","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-russians","tag-seized","tag-smoking","tag-steel","tag-trial","tag-troops","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-victory","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-war","tag-war-crimes","tag-who","tag-worldwide"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}