Details become known of how essential delivery to Mariupol took place
IRYNA BALACHUK - FRIDAY, 22 APRIL 2022, 10:18
OLEKSIY DANILOV. PHOTO BY DMYTRO LARIN, UKRAINSKA PRAVDA
The Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council (RNBO), Oleksiy Danilov, said that supplies were delivered to Mariupol by helicopters, and that the city's defenders asked only for ammunition.
Source: Ukrainska Pravda interview with Danilov
Quote: "This should not be said, but I will tell you that when we started sending helicopters there at night and when we asked them what they needed, they asked for ammunition. Not water, not food, although we delivered those as well."
Details: The Secretary of the RNBO noted that the situation in Mariupol is difficult now, but "it has never been easy there." He added that the defenders of Mariupol "are tying down a large group of Russian troops."
Danilov also confirmed that "everything possible and impossible is being done" to help the residents and defenders of the city.
"Believe me, if there were even one real opportunity to solve this issue, we would solve it," the Secretary of the RNBO concluded.
Previously: On 21 April, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu misinformed the president of the aggressor country, Vladimir Putin, that "Mariupol has been liberated", but then added that "more than 2,000" Ukrainian defenders remained in the city.
Background:
- Mariupol has been under siege since 1 March. On 12 April, some Marines were able to break through from the Ilyich plant to join the representatives of the Azov Regiment at the Azovstal plant, while some were taken prisoners.
- The Russian army struck Azovstal with extremely powerful bombs. On 19 April, Sviatoslav Palamar ("Kalyna"), the deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, reported that the Azovstal plant had been almost completely destroyed and that the servicemen were pulling people out from under the rubble.
- On 19 April, the Russian Defence Ministry offered Ukrainian defenders stationed at Azovstal for at least the third time to lay down their arms and surrender.
- The commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Navy, Serhiy Volynskyi (Volyna), called on foreign states to urgently carry out an "extraction" from Mariupol - to take several hundred military and civilians from Azovstal to a safe place to save them from the Russians.
- On 20 April, it became known that the Marines and the Azov Regiment had rescued some 500 soldiers from the port of Mariupol.
