Shocking images have revealed the appalling devastation wreaked upon residential buildings in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol by Russian forces as the city vows to “endure”.
Newsflash obtained the images from the Azov Regiment, which is part of the National Guard of Ukraine, yesterday (Monday, 28th March).
Azov wrote: “Hi there. I am your Mariupol.
“The enemy knocked out my glass eyes.
“Do you see blackened walls? He burned my body.
“He breaks me to pieces – brick by brick, because he is looking for my soul. My people.
“I close them as best I can.
“They say I’m a fortress.
“I hold on while they fight for me.
“I have to endure.”
According to a Downing Street spokesperson yesterday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the “appalling humanitarian situation” in the besieged port city in a call.
The day before, 586 people left Mariupol by car through Russian- and separatist-controlled humanitarian corridors.
However some 170,000 civilians are reported to remain trapped in the south-eastern Ukrainian city without adequate food, water or medicine.
According to a senior Ukrainian official yesterday, at least 5,000 people have died in Mariupol since the start of the invasion, on 24th February.
The Russian Armed Forces are believed to have been launching heavy attacks on the port city because it is a key location to control access to the Sea of Azov.
Mariupol is also important to Russia because taking it would secure a land corridor between Crimea and Donbas.
The Russians are believed to have been bombarding and shelling the city relentlessly in frustration at failing to subjugate it quickly.
The Russian Armed Forces failed to take Mariupol quickly in part due to the strength and resolve of the Ukrainian resistance, which includes the Azov Regiment.
However, the regiment, formally known as the Azov Special Operations Detachment, is notorious for its alleged neo-Nazi sympathies, which Azov representatives deny.
Azov was created in 2014 by far-right activists and racists, but it has now been described as “de-ideologised”.
Nevertheless, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated goals for his invasion of Ukraine was the country’s “denazification”.
That said, British intelligence said yesterday that Russia’s Wagner Group, a paramilitary organisation, had been deployed to eastern Ukraine.
And Lt. Col. Dmitry Utkin, a leader of the group, is believed by some to be a neo-Nazi himself.
According to the latest reports, Mariupol, of which 80 to 90 per cent has been destroyed, is very likely to fall “imminently”.
