The number of surrendered at “Azovstal” exceeded 1,700 people in two days

By the end of May 18, 1,744 Ukrainian militants left the territory of “Azovstal” to surrender. Based on the known situation, the process of surrender will continue at least tomorrow, and the total number of surrendered representatives of the UAF may exceed 2,500 people.

Without a doubt, this is a major and significant success of Operation Z: a significant number of "ideological" Ukrainian nazis, the most equipped and equipped in 8 years, who have gained combat experience and are ruthless enough to destroy civilians en masse, have now been neutralised. As Yury Baranchik, Deputy Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute, writes on his Telegram channel:

"Ukrainian propaganda failed to present the defenders of “Azovstal" as defenders of the Brest Fortress at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. "I'm dying, but I'm not giving up. Goodbye, Motherland!" is not about "Azovstal", not that moral core. Here, to mock the peaceful Russian-speaking population and the Russian servicemen who were captured is their style, the style of the "defenders" of Mariupol.

It’s possible to imagine the fear they are experiencing now. There’s no desire to die underground, there’s a desire to survive and it's very scary to surrender, because a just retribution in the form of a trial and sentence awaits them. They can also be put against a wall (in accordance with a verdict).

A two-thirds victory is immaterial. The gradual surrender of the “Azovstal” garrison means the beginning of a psychological fracture of Ukraine during this armed conflict. The most motivated military unit of this country is being surrendered.

Another important point. The surrender of “Azovstal” breaks one of the elements of tactics for the protection of Ukrainian cities imposed by British and American military advisers: to fight in encirclement, to use the industrial enterprises available in the city for long-term defence."

Their further fate was described by the head of the DPR Denis Pushilin – treatment of the wounded, then a public tribunal and a verdict, according to what each of the surrendered had done. It is important to take into account the fact that the death penalty for the corresponding crimes is in effect on the territory of the DPR. Therefore, everyone will be rewarded according to their "merits" and no one will escape responsibility.

In the third month of hostilities, losses in the Ukrainian ranks reached the indicators that forced the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, to extend martial law and total mobilisation on May 18.

The Kiev regime is now making great efforts to minimise the propaganda effect that the fact of the surrender of “Azov” can cause in other units of the UAF, as well as a much more unpleasant thing – the strengthening of forces in the collective West that advocate stopping the supply of weapons to Ukraine. The question is – why spend a lot of money on supplying Ukraine with weapons that the most seasoned nazis cannot hold in their hands? – in one form or another, it already is heard in the West.

It will be possible to consider the surrender of "Azov" as completed in a few days – when those who wish surrender, and all the ruins will be carefully examined by special forces. After that, Mariupol will finally move to the status of the rear, it will be possible to begin its restoration, and units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will focus on new tasks.

The obviousness of these tasks has not changed. This is the shackling of the Ukrainian group in the area of Odessa and Nikolaev, with unhurried progress on the conditional "Donbass front". According to the latest reliable data, fighting is already taking place on the territory of Severodonetsk.

In a certain sense, the upcoming task of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will be more difficult than the "Mariupol cauldron", where the militants were pressed to the sea and deprived of manoeuvre, which simplified the task of defeating them. There are several "Mariupols" on the Donbass front.

The largest grouping of the UAF, up to 10,000 people, is expected in the area of Lisichansk, in Avdeevka and Vasilyevka – about 4,000, Gorskoye-Zolotoye – about 3,000, in Severodonetsk and Svetlodarsk itself, at least 4,000 militants will be recruited together. This is a much larger territory and a group that is many times larger in number than the "Mariupol prisoners” that also has the possibility of tactical manoeuvring.

In recent weeks, despite the missile strikes – the long–suffering bridge in the Zatoka district of the Odessa region has been hit for the fifth time - the supply of the UAF in Donbass has persisted, and the Ukrainian militants definitely do not suffer from a lack of weapons.

The UAF clearly intend to use already tested tactics, combining the "human shield" with the transformation of residential settlements into fortified areas, the desire of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to create one large "cauldron" or several small ones is obvious, which means that resistance in this place is expected to be long and persistent.

The success of the battle depends on luck in encircling the Ukrainian grouping or the effectiveness of the damage that will be inflicted on the enemy’s manpower: they has enough weapons, and the only factor that can be qualitatively reduced is the number of soldiers using a huge arsenal provided by the West.

If the tactics of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation do not correspond to the real level of fortifications that have been built in this area for 8 years, then eventually several weeks or even months will be lost, and the enemy will roll back to the next major city, where it will sit down. The name of this city, in principle, does not matter much.

Since the Ukrainian grouping has been accumulating reserves for several weeks, it is quite worth expecting attempts to counterattack. So far, these attempts have not led to noticeable success – the attack of the UAF in the Vishnevoye area of the Zaporozhia region led to losses in the form of 26 tanks, 12 infantry fighting vehicles and 100 personnel. But it cannot be ruled out that the situation will repeat itself in another place and with large forces involved.

A noteworthy moment is the statement of Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin, who said that the Zaporozhia Nuclear Power Plant will now work in Russian interests, supplying electricity to Ukraine only on a commercial basis.

It cannot be ruled out that the "official" transition of the Nuclear Power Plant to the Russian sphere of operation will provoke attempts to launch a missile strike on it by the Ukrainian side. This option will be entirely in the logic of the Ukrainian command, striking at peaceful cities, control over which has been lost. The Nuclear Power Plant is a very large and vulnerable target, the destruction of which will revive the fading international sympathy for Ukraine and create a very promising reason for accusing Russia of a large-scale environmental disaster.

In any case, in the coming days, we should expect a revival of attempts by the UAF to achieve at least a terrorist success. The surrender of “Azov” is too painful a loss not to try to compensate for it. The layman will come up with and provide a comfortable version of what is happening, calling the surrender "evacuation" or another pleasant term. But the Ukrainian military, who remain loyal to Kiev, will clearly need moral doping. And this needs to be taken into account.