A photographer who documented Mariupol’s Soviet-era iron- and steelworks shares insights into the factory set to hold a final showdown between Ukraine’s Azov Battalion and Russian forces. According to the Kremlin-controlled TASS news agency, Russia-backed separatists began advancing into Mariupol’s Azovstal iron- and steelworks on April 19 with “attack groups formed for storming the facility.” A puff of smoke from fighting rises above Mariupol’s Azovstal iron- and steelworks on April 18, nearly two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian fighters from the controversial Azov Battalion, whose members sport badges featuring neo-Nazi symbols, are holed up inside the massive factory in preparation for what is likely to be a bloody and destructive battle. The Ukrainians ignored earlier calls to surrender. (…) Although he was not given access to Azovstal’s shelters during his 2016 visit, Macha says that, when the factory was restored in the 1940s after the harsh lessons of World War II, Soviet planners “built the bomb shelters first, then rebuilt the steel mill above them, so it’s well protected, but perhaps not enough.”
via rferl: Inside Azovstal: The Ukrainian Metalworks That Has Become A ‘Last Stand’ Fortress