Russia's claimed seizure of a Mariupol steel plant gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a sorely needed victory in the war he began.
POKROVSK, Ukraine -- Russia's claimed seizure of a Mariupol steel plant that became a symbol of Ukrainian tenacity gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a sorely needed victory in the war he began, capping a nearly three-month siege that left the city in ruins and more than 20,000 residents feared dead.
Russian officials and state media repeatedly have tried to characterize the fighters who holed up in the Azovstal steel plant as neo-Nazis. Among the plant's more than 2,400 defenders were members of the Azov Regiment, a national guard unit with roots in the far right. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported Saturday that Russia had destroyed a Ukrainian special-operations base in Black Sea region of Odesa as well as significant cache of Western-supplied weapons in northern Ukraine's Zhytomyr region. There was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.
As the end drew near at the steel plant, wives of fighters who had held out told of what they feared would be their last contact with their husbands. No evidence of Ukrainian antipathy toward the nationalist regiment has emerged. The Kremlin has seized on the regiment's far-right origins in its drive to to cast the invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine.
With Mariupol under Russian control, Ukrainian authorities are likely to face delays in documenting evidence of alleged Russian atrocities in the city, including the bombings of a maternity hospital and a theater where civilians had taken cover.
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