Moscow announces the end of the operation to liberate the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic

Moscow-Sana

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced today that the operation to liberate the territory of the Luhansk People's Republic is nearing completion.

Shoigu said during a meeting at the Russian Defense Ministry today: The Russian forces, together with units of the People's Police from the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics, continue to expand their control over the Donbass lands, and that the liberation of the Lugansk People's Republic is nearing completion.

Shoigu added that the Ukrainian forces that are trying to delay the advance of the Russian forces do not allow the local population to leave the cities and towns and use them as human shields, pointing out that the Kyiv regime, after suffering a defeat on the ground, seeks to achieve short-term successes at least in some areas to portray them as major successes. .

The Russian Defense Minister indicated that on the eve of the Victory Day over Nazism on the ninth of this month, the Ukrainian authorities took an adventure to recover the island of Zmyni, but that ended in complete failure, as the Russian forces eliminated more than 50 elements of the Ukrainian elite units, and the Russian army destroyed four aircraft within three days. hostile, 10 helicopters, 30 drones, and three boats.

Shoigu stated that the siege of the Azovstal factory was continuing and that civilians who had been detained by the Ukrainian nationalists were evacuated from the factory's territory, with 177 people, including 85 women and 47 children, being rescued.

Shoigu pointed out that the extremists trapped in the factory began to surrender, and so far 1,908 people laid down their weapons, in addition to the surrender of 1,387 Ukrainian marines in Mariupol earlier.

Shoigu stressed that the Russian armed forces are doing everything possible to avoid casualties among the civilian population, and for this purpose, humanitarian corridors are operating on a permanent basis.

Shoigu explained that since the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine, more than 1,377,000 people have been evacuated to Russia from the vulnerable areas of Lugansk and Donetsk, as well as from Ukraine.

In turn, the military commander of the Azov extremist battalion of the Ukrainian army, Denis Prokopenko, revealed today instructions issued by his army to surrender the last Ukrainian soldiers holed up in the Azovstal factory in the city of Mariupol and stop fighting.

This came in a video message broadcast by the commander of the extremist Azov battalion, in which he acknowledged what the Russian Defense Minister had confirmed about the evacuation of all civilians from the factory lands.

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