Weeks-long siege ends at Azovstal, Russia says | Russia intensifies offensive in Donbas | Russia stops Finland gas flows over payment dispute. Russia claimed victory in a months-long battle for Mariupol’s Avostal steel plant, taking it a step nearer to its goal of controlling Ukraine’s Donbas region, and halted gas exports to Finland in an escalation of an energy payment dispute with Western nations. Russia also launched what appeared to be a major assault to seize the last remaining Ukrainian-held territory in Luhansk, one of two provinces that make up the southeastern Donbas region and where Russian-backed separatists already controlled swathes of territory before the February 24 invasion. The last Ukrainian forces holed up in Mariupol’s smashed Azovstal steelworks surrendered on Friday, Russia’s defense ministry said, ending the bloodiest siege of the war. (…) The Red Cross said it had registered hundreds of Ukrainians who surrendered at the Mariupol steel plant as prisoners of war and Kyiv says it wants a prisoner swap. Moscow says the prisoners will be treated humanely, but Russian politicians have been quoted as saying some must be tried or even executed. Thousands of people in Ukraine have been killed and urban areas have been shattered in the war. Almost a third of Ukraine’s people have fled their homes, including more than 6 million who have left the country.
via jerusalem post: Russia claims victory in months-long battle for Mariupol’s Avostal steel plant