Lhe Kremlin denied on Wednesday May 4 that Russian soldiers had launched an assault on the Azovstal steelworks. Located in the port city of Mariupol, in southeastern Ukraine, it is the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance. “The order was given (April 21) publicly by the Commander-in-Chief (Vladimir Putin) to call off any assault. There is no assault” at the moment, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Even though, on the Ukrainian side, it is said to face “violent fighting”.
The Russian official, moreover, added that the Moscow forces were besieging the site and only intervened to “very quickly stop attempts” by Ukrainian fighters to reach “firing positions”. The day before, Tuesday May 3, the Ukrainian authorities had indicated that the Russian forces were carrying out a “powerful assault” on the territory of Azovstal, with tanks and infantry. In Moscow, the Ministry of Defense had only announced aircraft and artillery strikes to “destroy Ukrainian firing positions”.
More than two months after the start of the Russian offensive on Ukraine, the forces sent by Vladimir Putin control most of Mariupol. After several weeks of siege, the city is largely devastated.
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Lost contact with Ukrainian resistance fighters
Despite Russian denials, the mayor of the city Vadim Boïtchenko assured that “heavy fighting” was underway on the Azovstal site. “We lost contact with the guys. We cannot know what is going on there, whether they are safe or not,” he told Ukrainian television.
The last Ukrainian defenders resist in the vast network of underground galleries of the steelworks. A maze of corridors difficult to storm or destroy by bombardment. According to kyiv, civilians are still in the steelworks. The United Nations confirmed on Tuesday the evacuation of a hundred of them, taken to Zaporijia.
On April 21, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin declared that the city of Mariupol had been conquered. And this, while a strong Ukrainian resistance was still in place in the industrial site. On that occasion, he had also judged that an assault on Azovstal would cost too much in the lives of Russian soldiers, ordering instead to besiege the area, “so that not a fly would pass”. The Ukrainian forces still there refused to surrender.
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A military parade in preparation?
At the same time, Ukrainian intelligence said on Wednesday that Russia would prepare a military parade in the port of Mariupol on May 9. Every year on this date, Moscow celebrates the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany. According to the Ukrainian military intelligence services (GUR), the deputy director of the Russian presidential administration Sergey Kirienko would have arrived in Mariupol in order to prepare for this parade. “The main mission of Vladimir Putin’s official is to prepare the ceremonies on May 9,” read a statement from the GUR on Telegram.
Also according to this message, Mariupol would become “a center of celebrations”. “The main avenues of the city are urgently cleaned, the debris and the bodies of the dead removed, as well as the ammunition which did not explode”, specifies the press release. Russian viewers will see reports of Mariupol residents’ “joy” at seeing Russians arrive in their city, it adds. Every year, the May 9 holiday is the occasion of a great military parade in Moscow, on Red Square.
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Still according to the GUR, “a large-scale propaganda campaign is underway” among the population of the city, now estimated by the Ukrainian authorities at between 100,000 and 120,000 people. They were nearly half a million before February 24. Asked about these possible preparations, the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, did not explicitly mention the possibility of such a parade in Mariupol.
“This year, military parades will take place in 28 Russian cities”, he only indicated, specifying that “nearly 65,000 people, about 2,400 types of weapons and military equipment and more than 460 aircraft will be mobilized this year.