Russia will grant Mariupol defenders their lives if they lay down arms, Ukrainians refuse

Denys Karlovsky – Friday, 18 March 2022, 21:15

The Russian Ministry of Defence announced that it will, allegedly, guarantee the survival of those Mariupol defenders who lay down their arms and surrender.

Source: Russian state media RIA Novosti [RIA News]; Svyatoslav Palamar, captain of the Azov battalion, in an address

Details: The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation claims that it is prepared to grant soldiers of the Mariupol defence forces their lives if they lay down their arms. Russian propaganda continues to call the Ukrainian troops "nationalists."

The Azov Battalion has said that neither they – nor anyone else – would give Mariupol over to Russian forces. The battalion has promised that Mariupol will remain a Ukrainian city, and explained that Russia was seeking to seize the Donetsk region port in order to create a land corridor to Crimea and reveal the alleged weakness of the Ukrainian state.

Background:

• Oleksiy Arestovych, Advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on 18 March that a military operation to de-blockade Mariupol is currently impossible.
• Mariupol City Council reported that Russian troops drop 50 to 100 aerial bombs on the city daily. Occupying forces have destroyed 80-90% of buildings in the city, none of which can be repaired.
• Associated Press journalists believe that Putin is deploying his favourite tactics in Mariupol – laying a mediaeval siege to the city and slowly obliterating its civilian population. These are the same tactics Putin resorted to in Syria.
• In the afternoon of 16 March, Russian aircraft dropped a powerful bomb on the drama theatre in the centre of Mariupol. The building was a shelter for about a thousand city residents who had lost their homes due to Russian shelling. Russia’s Defence Ministry has denied that their planes were involved, and fabricated a lie that the bombings were a provocation by the Azov battalion.
• Later, Maxar Technologies showed satellite images which revealed the word "Children" spelled out, in Russian, in large white letters on the pavement in front of and behind the theatre building, for pilots to see before making the decision of whether to drop a bomb.