MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/. Over 8,000 Ukrainian troops, nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries stayed in Mariupol at the time of the city’s encirclement, Russian Defense Minister Army General Sergey Shoigu reported to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
"At the time of encirclement, the Ukrainian troops, nationalist formations and foreign mercenaries, who were also in large numbers totaled about 8,100. During the city’s liberation, over 4,000 of them were eliminated, 1,478 surrendered while the remaining force of over 2,000 militants is blocked at the Azovstal industrial site," Shoigu said.
The Ukrainian nationalists used actually all residential buildings as weapon emplacements, with armored vehicles and artillery guns deployed on first floors and snipers on upper floors. They pushed residents into medium floors and basements to use them as a human shield, the Russian defense chief said.
Russian President Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, noting that the operation was aimed at the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.