President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the Russian military to cancel plans to storm a Mariupol steelworks, and declared the Ukrainian port city 'liberated'.
Instead of launching a final assault on the Azovstal steel plant - the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in the devastated coastal city - he said he wanted his forces to completely block off the complex instead, 'so even a fly cannot escape'.
Putin gave the order to Sergei Shoigu, his defence minister, who had previously told his boss more than 2,000 Ukrainian fighters were still holed up in the vast plant, which has a sprawling labyrinth of tunnels underneath it.
'I consider the proposed storming of the industrial zone unnecessary,' Putin told Shoigu in a televised meeting at the Kremlin. 'I order you to cancel it.'
After Shoigu told him Moscow controlled the city - apart from the Azovstal steel plant - Putin hailed the 'successful liberation' of Mariupol.
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Sure he does, that's what communists do!
We had to put up with signes all over the country after the Soviets "liberated" us from ourselves, thanking them for their bravery, their sacrifice. We were thanking the brave soviet army for saving us from ourselves until 1991, when they finally were completely broke and couldn't afford to keep guard to keep us behind barbed wires and machine guns. Not once could you say they were keeping us in a country of prison, if you dared you ended up in a work camp. I'm sure the thankful and happy people of Mariupol will be marching, singing the Russian anthem with great big grins on their thankful faces!