Leader Chechen The pro-Russian Ramzan Kadyrov said that Russia managed to control 90 to 95 percent of the Mariupol City area, Ukraine.
Kadyrov himself is an ally of the President Vladimir Putin who regularly accompanied Russia in launching invasions. It has also sent thousands of Chechen troops to fight in Mariupol.
Earlier, Kadyrov was reportedly visiting Mariupol to boost the fighting spirit of the Chechen team.
“Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is in Mariupol to boost our team’s fighting spirit,” Chechen Political Minister Akhmed Dudayev told RIA quoted by AFP on Tuesday (29/3).
Apart from controlling Mariupol, the pro-Russian stronghold also claims to have succeeded in controlling more than 50 percent of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine claim they control 90 percent of the Luhansk region and more than 50 percent of the Donetsk region.
“As of the morning of March 31, 2022, more than 90 percent of the territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic has been liberated,” the Luhansk separatist Foreign Ministry said in a Telegram post on Thursday (31/3), as reported by AFP.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Donetsk separatists, Denis Pushilin, told the Tass news agency that about 55 to 60 percent of the territory he ‘controlled’ was under Russian control on Wednesday (30/3).
However, AFP cannot independently confirm this claim.
Before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the separatists controlled only a third of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the two regions before ordering a “special military operation” into Ukraine.
The conflict between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists has been going on for a long time, since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.
(pwn / bac)
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