Pro-Russian forces capture broadcasting station in Mariupol capable of transmitting Russian TV channels to the Ukrainian South

The so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ has captured Mariupol’s broadcasting station and is looking forward to broadcasting Russian TV channels to the south of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions ‘before long’, reports the local militia.

All TV channels included in the first and second packages of the Russian multiplex became available in Kherson on Friday, RIA Novosti reports. These include Channel One Russia, Russia 1, Russia 24, Kultura, Match TV, NTV, Channel Five, Karusel, OTR, TVC, REN-TV, Spas, STS, Domashny, TV-3, Friday!, Zvezda, Mir, TNT, Muz-TV, as well as Vesti FM, the state-owned radio station.

Yesterday Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s Defence Minister, reported to Vladimir Putin that the Russian army captured Mariupol. Putin, in his turn, commanded to cancel the offensive of the Azovstal steel plant deeming it ‘impractical’. ‘I command you to block the area so that no fly would escape from there. We need to save our men instead of making them crawl those catacombs’, he said.

However, Mariupol’s official authorities reported that the shelling of the steelworks continued on 21 April late in the evening. An adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Petr Andryushchenko, also said that there was combat in the vicinity of the local train yard, although Russia had reported complete control over the city.

Mariupol is a huge city in the south of the Donetsk region on the coast of the Sea of Azov. The city was surrounded in the early days of the war and remained under siege for more than six weeks. It is challenging to calculate how many civilians were killed in the siege. Vadym Boychenko, the city’s mayor, claims that at least 10,000 residents lost their lives.

Russian TV is also available in Ukraine’s Kherson region. The city of Kherson has been occupied for over a month. The local residents frequently organise pro-Ukrainian rallies, demanding an end to the occupation, while Russian troops fire into the air and use stun grenades to chase away the protesters.