Azov surrenders. Who will be the sacred martyr now?

Guest Post by Batko Milacic for the Saker Blog

Azov surrenders. Who will be the sacred martyr now?

On the night of May 17, after brief negotiations, Ukrainian army units, blocked by Russian troops at Azovstal in Mariupol, began to surrender. Initially, it was announced that the Ukrainian military wanted to hand over to Russia their wounded whose condition in the cellars of a huge factory was hopeless. However, it soon became clear that the entire “Mariupol garrison” as the remnants of the nationalist volunteer regiment “Azov” and the units of the Ukrainian army that had joined it were called by the Kiev-controlled media, were laying down their arms. So, on the morning of May 17, 90 wounded soldiers were pulled out of the basements and were joined by more than 250 healthy, albeit exhausted and filthy fighters. In a few days, that number reached 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers. That’s why we wonder, what fate awaits them and other members of the Ukrainian army who surrender to Russian troops?

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Welcome to Hell. Horrible Scenes From Mariupol

Submitted by Ghost

Via Exposing the Darkness

War Crimes by the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion Your Taxes Actually Paid For

Tsargrad.tv military reporter and author of the “Hot spots with Daria Aslamova” program is in Mariupol and tells us the story of the endless courage and resilience of the locals, who, in spite of everything, did not allow anyone to dehumanize them.

The post of the military commandant’s office in Mariupol is a stage on which such human tragedies are played out, in comparison with which the ancient tragedy simply rests. Residents come out of the city – distraught from grief and trouble, who have lost loved ones, dirty, with black, sooty hands (they cooked food on fires in the yard for a month). Old people are being transported in carts. Some of them are completely without things (burned down in a fire). I was struck by a woman who had nothing but a cat basket. The quiet, trembling cat didn’t even meow.

We see a small group: a grandmother in a wheelchair being pushed by a girl and a boy, a man and a woman. Obviously family. Right at the post at the grandmother’s head leans back. Dead! A serviceman tries to feel the pulse, but too late. The heart-breaking cries of loved ones.

Don’t film! the girl screams. – Be human! 

I remove the camera.

Why was all this? the girl sobs. – I didn’t save my grandmother!

The man bends over the still-warm body and senselessly pulls it: “Mom, mom!” From that moment on, he behaves like a robot following orders.

Question: what to do with the body? A determined young woman, who is clearly waiting for someone from the city, says:

Put grandma in my car. I’ll take her to the hospital. It’s close here.

The body is carefully seated and fastened. The girl leaves with the dead body. The family, stunned with grief, is taken to the hospital by French journalists.

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New witness testimony about Mariupol maternity hospital ‘airstrike’ follows pattern of Ukrainian deceptions, media malpractice

Via The Gray Zone

On March 9th, shocking news of a deliberate Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, began spreading widely via social media and news outlets.

Fiery condemnation from Western officials, pundits, and journalists was immediate. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, claimed the act was proof of the “genocide” Russia was perpetrating against the civilian population, and urged European leaders to condemn the “war crime” and “strengthen sanctions” to stop the Kremlin’s “evil” deeds in the country. NPR suggested the attack was part of Russia’s “terrible wartime tradition” of purposefully targeting health facilities and medics during conflicts, dating back to Chechnya.

But newly released testimony from one of the incident’s main witnesses punctures the official narrative about a targeted Russian airstrike on the hospital. The witness account indicates the hospital had been turned into a base of operations by Ukrainian military forces and was not targeted in an airstrike, as Western media claimed. Her testimony also raised serious questions about whether at least some elements of the event were staged for propaganda purposes – and with the cooperation of the Associated Press.

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Was bombing of Mariupol theater staged by Ukrainian Azov extremists to trigger NATO intervention?

Guest Post by Max Blumenthal

Testimony by evacuated Mariupol residents and warnings of a false flag attack undermine the Ukrainian government’s claims about a Russian bombing of a local theater sheltering civilians.

Western media have reported that Russia’s military deliberately attacked the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, claiming that it was filled with civilians and marked with signs reading “children” on its grounds.

The supposed bombing took place just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to US Congress for a no fly zone, fueling the chorus for direct military confrontation with Russia and apparently inspiring President Joseph Biden to brand Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, as a “war criminal.”

A closer look reveals that local residents in Mariupol had warned three days before the March 16 incident that the theater would be the site of a false flag attack launched by the openly neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which controlled the building and the territory around it.

Civilians that escaped the city through humanitarian corridors have testified that they were held by Azov as human shields in area, and that Azov fighters detonated parts of the theater as they retreated. Despite claims of a massive Russian airstrike that reduced the building to ashes, all civilians appear to have escaped with their lives.

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