Russia’s Claim of Mariupol’s Capture Fuels Concern for POWs

 An aerial view of a residential area destroyed by Russian shelling in Irpin close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, May 21, 2022. (AP)
An aerial view of a residential area destroyed by Russian shelling in Irpin close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, May 21, 2022. (AP)
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Russia’s Claim of Mariupol’s Capture Fuels Concern for POWs

 An aerial view of a residential area destroyed by Russian shelling in Irpin close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, May 21, 2022. (AP)
An aerial view of a residential area destroyed by Russian shelling in Irpin close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, May 21, 2022. (AP)

Russia’s claimed seizure of a Mariupol steel plant that became a symbol of Ukrainian tenacity gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly wanted victory in the war he began, capping a nearly three-month siege that left a city in ruins and more than 20,000 residents feared dead.

After the Russian Defense Ministry announced late Friday that its forces had removed the last Ukrainian fighters from the plant's miles of underground tunnels, concern mounted for the Ukrainian defenders who now are prisoners in Russian hands.
Denis Pushilin, the head of an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, said Saturday that the Ukrainians, considered heroes by their fellow citizens, were sure to face a tribunal for their wartime actions.

"I believe that a tribunal is inevitable here. I believe that justice must be restored. There is a request for this from ordinary people, society, and, probably, the sane part of the world community," Russian state news agency Tass quoted Pushilin as saying.

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.

The Ukrainian government has not commented on Russia's claim of capturing Azovstal, which for weeks remained Mariupol's last holdout of Ukrainian resistance, and with it completing Moscow's long-sought goal of controlling the city, home to a strategic seaport.

Ukraine's military this week told the fighters holed up in the plant, hundreds of them wounded, that their mission was complete and they could come out. It described their extraction as an evacuation, not a mass surrender.

The end of the battle for Mariupol would help Putin offset some stinging setbacks, including the failure of Russian troops to take over Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, the sinking of the Russian Navy’s flagship in the Black Sea and the continued resistance that has stalled an offensive in eastern Ukraine.

The impact of Russia's declared victory on the broader war in Ukraine remained unclear. Many Russian troops already had been redeployed from Mariupol to elsewhere in the conflict, which began when Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported Saturday that Russia had destroyed a Ukrainian special-operations base in the Black Sea region of Odesa as well as a significant cache of Western-supplied weapons in northern Ukraine's Zhytomyr region. There was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.

In its morning operational report, the Ukrainian military general staff reported heavy fighting in much of eastern Ukraine, including the areas of Sievierodonetsk, Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

After failing to capture Kyiv, Russia focused its offensive on the country's eastern industrial heartland. The Russia-backed separatists have controlled parts of the Donbas region since 2014, and Moscow wants to expand the territory under its control.

The seizure of Mariupol furthers Russia’s quest to essentially create a land bridge from Russia stretching through the Donbas region to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Saturday that Russia was working to restore the port and remove mines.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded anew that Russia pay "in one way or another for everything it has destroyed in Ukraine. Every burned house. Every ruined school, ruined hospital. Each blown up house of culture and infrastructure facility. Every destroyed enterprise."

"Of course, the Russian state will not even recognize that it is an aggressor,” he said in an address late Friday. "But its recognition is not required."

Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to his US counterpart, Joe Biden, who signed off Saturday on a fresh, $40 billion infusion of aid for the war-ravaged nation. Half of the funding provides military assistance.

Mariupol, which is part of the Donbas, was blockaded early in the war and became a frightening example to people elsewhere in the country of the hunger, terror and death they might face if the Russians surrounded their communities.

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.

Olga Boiko, the wife of a marine, wiped away tears as she shared the words her husband wrote her on Thursday: "Hello. We surrender, I don’t know when I will get in touch with you and if I will at all. Love you. Kiss you. Bye."

The seaside steelworks, occupying some 11 square kilometers (4 square miles), had been a battleground for weeks. Drawing Russian airstrikes, artillery and tank fire, the dwindling group of outgunned fighters held out with the help of airdrops before their government ordered them to abandon the plant.

Zelenskyy revealed in an interview published Friday that Ukrainian helicopter pilots braved Russian anti-aircraft fire to ferry in medicine, food and water to the steel mill as well as to retrieve bodies and rescue wounded fighters.

A "very large" number of the pilots died on their daring missions, he said. "They are absolutely heroic people, who knew that it would be difficult, knew that to fly would be almost impossible," Zelenskyy said.

Russia claimed that the Azov Regiment's commander was taken away from the plant in an armored vehicle because of local residents' alleged hatred for him, but 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 cast the invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine. Russian authorities have threatened to put some of the steel mill’s defenders on trial for alleged war crimes.

With Russia controlling the city, Ukrainian authorities are likely to face delays in documenting evidence of alleged Russian atrocities in Mariupol, including the bombings of a maternity hospital and a theater where hundreds of civilians had taken cover.

Satellite images in April showed what appeared to be mass graves just outside Mariupol, where local officials accused Russia of concealing the slaughter by burying up to 9,000 civilians.

Earlier this month, hundreds of civilians were evacuated from the plant during humanitarian cease-fires and spoke of the terror of ceaseless bombardment, the dank conditions underground and the fear that they wouldn’t make it out alive.

At one point in the siege, Pope Francis lamented that Mariupol had become a "city of martyrs."

An estimated 100,000 of the 450,000 people who resided there before the war remain. Many, trapped by Russia’s siege, were left without food, water and electricity.

The chief executive of Metinvest, a multinational company that owns the Azovstal plant and another steel mill, Ilyich, in Mariupol, spoke of the city's devastation in an interview published Saturday in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

"The Russians are trying to clean it (the city) up to hide their crimes,'' the newspaper quoted Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov as saying. ”The inhabitants are trying to make the city function, to make water supplies work again."

"But the sewer system is damaged, there has been flooding, and infections are feared” from drinking the water, he said.

The Ilyich steelworks still has some intact infrastructure, but if the Russians try to get it running, Ukrainians will refuse to return to their jobs there, Ryzhenkov said.

"We will never work under Russian occupation,'' he said.



Trump Downplays Possibility of Sending Ukraine Long-Range Weapons as It Struggles to Repel Russia

 In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a local resident walks along the street under an anti-drone net in Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a local resident walks along the street under an anti-drone net in Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
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Trump Downplays Possibility of Sending Ukraine Long-Range Weapons as It Struggles to Repel Russia

 In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a local resident walks along the street under an anti-drone net in Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a local resident walks along the street under an anti-drone net in Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday downplayed the possibility of sending Ukraine long-range weapons as Kyiv awaits an injection of US weaponry that it hopes will help it beat back an intensifying Russian air offensive.

Trump offered a more cautious tone on what to expect after he threatened Russia a day earlier with steep tariffs if President Vladimir Putin doesn’t act within 50 days to end the three-year conflict. He also on Monday announced plans to bolster Kyiv's stockpile by selling American weapons to NATO allies who would in turn send arms to Ukraine.

Providing Ukraine with more long-range weaponry would give Kyiv the chance to strike further into Russian territory, a move that some in Ukraine and the US have said could help push Putin toward negotiations to end the fighting.

Asked if he intended to supply Ukraine with weapons that could reach deeper into Russian territory, Trump replied, "We're not looking to do that." He made the remarks to reporters before departing the White House for an energy investment event in Pittsburgh.

While Trump's threats of weapons, sanctions and tariffs mark the most substantive pressure he’s placed on Putin since returning to office nearly six months ago, some lawmakers said they remain concerned that the administration, with the 50-day deadline, is giving Putin time to grab even more Ukrainian territory.

Sens. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, and Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said waiting 50 days before imposing sanctions on Russia would give Putin more time to gain an advantage in the war.

"The 50-day delay worries me that Putin would try to use the 50 days to win the war, or to be better positioned to negotiate a peace agreement after having murdered and potentially collected more ground," said Tillis, who recently announced he won’t run for reelection.

Tillis and Shaheen lead the Senate NATO Observer Group, which facilitates work between Congress and NATO, and met Tuesday with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Capitol Hill.

Trump himself scoffed at the idea that 50 days is giving Putin too much time. The president suggested he may act more quickly if he does not see signs that Putin is taking steps toward ending the conflict.

"I don’t think 50 days is very long and it could be shorter than that," he said.

Ahead of Trump's announcement that he would impose a 100% tariff on Russia’s trading partners if Putin doesn't negotiate an end to the war, bipartisan legislation proscribing even tougher sanctions on Moscow was gaining steam in the Senate.

The legislation, in part, calls for a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports. It would have an enormous impact on the economies of Brazil, China and India, which account for the vast majority of Russia’s energy trade.

But Trump on Monday said "at a certain point it doesn’t matter" how high the tariff is set and that "100% is going to serve the same function." Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was putting the legislation on hold following Trump's announcement.

Trump during his campaign described the conflict as a waste of US taxpayer money and vowed to quickly end it on his first day back in office. He deflected when asked by a reporter on Tuesday if his tougher tone on Putin suggests he's now on Ukraine’s side in the bloody conflict.

"I’m on nobody’s side," Trump said, adding this concern was for "humanity."

US officials say they are still sorting through Ukraine’s wish list of weaponry to determine what can be most quickly replaced after Trump announced an agreement for Europe to supply Ukraine with defensive munitions from existing stocks.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss arms transfers that have not yet been approved or completed, said Ukraine’s requests for military equipment are roughly the same as they have been since the start of Russia’s invasion. Those include air defenses like Patriot missiles and Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems, long-range missiles known as ATACMS and short- to medium-range ground-to-air missiles known as NASAMs, and assorted artillery, according to the officials.

Under the terms of the very rough agreement sketched out by Trump and Rutte on Monday, NATO members would ship billions of dollars of these weapons to Ukraine and then purchase replacements for them from the United States.

One official said some of the larger items, such as Patriots, could take up to five years to produce to deliver to the European donors, while smaller munitions like 155mm artillery shells can be produced on a much shorter timeline.

Trump has lately changed his once friendly tune toward Putin, whom he has long admired and whom he sided with publicly over his national security team during his first term when asked whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.

In recent weeks, Trump has chastised Putin for continuing his brutal assault on Ukrainian cities, even noting that the Russian leader "talks nice and then he bombs everybody."

Trump has continued to blame his White House predecessors for Putin's 2022 invasion on neighboring Ukraine — a conflict he says would have never happened if he were reelected in 2020.

"He’s fooled a lot of people," Trump said Monday at the White House. "He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me."

In February, Trump expressed confidence that Putin "will keep his word" on any deal to end the war in Ukraine. But in an interview with the BBC published Tuesday, when asked whether he trusted Putin, Trump paused before answering.

"I trust almost nobody, to be honest with you," Trump said. "I’m disappointed in him, but I’m not done with him. But I’m disappointed in him."