The DPR told about the underground city that makes it difficult to assault "Azovstal"

Under the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, there is a whole underground city, and some of the premises of the enterprise are designed for a nuclear strike, all this makes it difficult to storm it. This was reported to RIA Novosti by the adviser to the HEAD of the government of the DPR, Yan Gagin.

Azovstal is a huge building, a huge Soviet-built plant, its area can be compared with another city, with another Mariupol, with its own communications, with roads and dungeons. That is, the facility itself was built back in Soviet times, taking into account the possibilities, including bombing, and blockades, and even some structures are designed for a nuclear strike, ”he said.

According to him, the assault on Azovstal is seriously hampered by the presence of underground communications that connect it with other similar objects in Mariupol - "there is another city under the city, practically."

The adviser to the head of the DPR noted that the plant is defended by thousands of people with a full arsenal of weapons and a large number of ammunition. “Therefore, the operation is going quite slowly, at first glance, but, on the other hand, we must understand that we cannot risk manpower, people. Therefore, artillery duels are constantly taking place on the territory of the enterprise itself, ”added Gagin.

At the same time, he expressed confidence that the Ukrainian security forces would not be able to break into Mariupol to release the nationalists. According to him, for this the nearest military grouping will have to cover a distance of about 100 kilometers.

Before the outbreak of hostilities, the Azovstal plant was considered one of the largest metallurgical enterprises in Ukraine. The plant is part of the metallurgical division of the Metinvest group, the main shareholders of which are Rinat Akhmetov's SCM group and Vadim Novinsky's Smart Holding.

The production capacity of the enterprise allowed it to produce up to 5.7 million tons of pig iron, 5.3 million tons of converter steel and 4.7 million tons of finished rolled products per year.

The fighting in Mariupol has been going on almost from the very beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine. By February 28, the DPR forces blocked the city, by March 11, the Ministry of Defense reported that the Ukrainian side had destroyed "all bridges and approaches to the city," and nationalists had mined the main roads. A week later, the ministry reported on the fighting in the center of Mariupol. The armed formations of the DPR, then the department pointed out, "compress the encirclement."

At the end of March, Kadyrov announced that Mariupol had been 95% liberated from "Bandera scumbags, Nazis and Chechen-speaking shaitans" and the last place where they took refuge was the Azovstal metallurgical plant. On April 4, the head of Chechnya shared footage of the assault on Azovstal by Chechen fighters. A few days later, he wrote that the Ukrainian formations were using the plant as their headquarters and had made it a "real fortress" with a bunker. He promised the Ukrainian military the end "in all genres of Hollywood", but without a "happy ending".

On April 4, the Ministry of Defense announced that the Ukrainian military, territorial defense battalions and “foreign mercenaries” could leave the city along the route agreed with Kyiv if they laid down their arms. The ministry explained the decision by “the most difficult humanitarian situation in certain areas of Mariupol controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces.” At the same time, at the end of March, the DPR announced that they would not release members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Mariupol, since, according to the authorities of the republic, these are criminals.

At the request of Roskomnadzor, RBC provides data on the details of the military operation in Ukraine based on information from Russian official sources.