by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge
While the major southeast Ukraine port city of Mariupol has already for weeks been effectively under total siege by Russian forces, a European official cited in The Hill on Tuesday has said “Mariupol will be controlled in the coming days” by the Russian military. It’s believed that Vladimir Putin also wants to see a major victory over the Donbas region by the time of Russia’s Victory Day holiday on May 9.
And Western officials are already alleging that Bucha-style mass killings will take place after President Zelensky said Monday that Russia is seeking to “wipe out” Mariupol. It’s being commonly estimated that there could still be as many as 100,000 civilians trapped in the city. “The Russians will continue to use artillery and bombings, and at the same time they will push civilians out of the city. So at the end of the day, we do expect a complete destruction of the city and many civilian casualties in Mariupol,” the European official added. “My fear is that it’s going to be worse than Bucha.”
Russian media, however, has said most of Mariupol is already “liberated” and that military forces have Ukrainian “radicals” surrounded – in reference to fighters from the neo-Nazi Azov regiment. Russian forces have reportedly opened a temporary ‘humanitarian corridor’ allowing anyone trapped inside the giant Azovstal steelworks plant to leave.
The complex ranks as among Europe’s metallurgical plants, with the entire stretch of the complex covering a whopping 4.25 square miles. Both Interfax and Russian state TV have reported that so far at least 120 people have safely exited the Azovostal plant since Russia forces erected the corridor.
Ukrainian military officials have estimated that hundreds of civilians have been sheltering in the plant, while Russian sources have said that at least a couple thousand Azov as well as foreign fighters are still holed up in a large steel factory.
Below: purported footage showing the evacuation of the some 120 civilians from the plant…
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