The Mariupol authorities assured that the Ukrainian resistance continues

The Ukrainian city of Mariupol, besieged by the Russian army, has not yet fallen under the total control of Moscow, despite the heavy bombing it is suffering, Petro Andriushchenko, deputy mayor of that town, said on Tuesday on his Telegram account.

“The occupation troops not only drop bombs on the Azovstal plant (which is still defended by Ukrainian soldiers), but chaotically bomb the residential quarters of the city, where they only recently allowed the return of civilians,” the official said.

The maritime city, on the shores of the Sea of Azov, has been heavily bombed by the Russian army since the beginning of the invasion on 24 February, and its population does not have basic services such as water, electricity, electricity or food.

Although the city is virtually destroyed, the municipal authorities appointed before the occupation continue to send messages about the situation of the nearly 100,000 civilians who remain in the city and the more than thousands of soldiers who prevent it from falling entirely into Russian hands.

“Not only are the occupants dropping extremely powerful bombs on Azovstal (steel and blast furnace complex), but they continue to bomb random residential areas of the Livoberezhnyi district along Meotyda Boulevard,” said Andriushchenko, according to Ukrainian agencies.

Last night, “the occupants allowed civilians to return to this part of the city to collect belongings from their homes,” he stressed.

And he denounced that “since the Russians use white ribbons to mark themselves, they also put them on the civilian population of the city to use it as' bait 'for Ukrainian snipers.”

According to Andriushchenko, since the beginning of the offensive in eastern Ukraine, mercenaries of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (self-proclaimed independent republic recognized by Moscow) have taken over the positions of Russian forces in Mariupol as part of the troop rotation.

“This may have been done in an attempt to strengthen the offensive,” he said.

In this situation “we have a new wave of looting by Russian soldiers. They open apartments that are still intact and take away citizens' things, mostly appliances. This robbery and this pettiness are nothing new for Russian troops,” said the deputy mayor.

Mariupol is a strategic point for the Russian army that it intends to occupy to unite its forces in southern and eastern Ukraine, from the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014, to the Donbas region, bordering Russia.

(With information from EFE)

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