Eduard Basurin, press secretary of the DPR military command, said that Ukrainian troops defending Mariupol must be encircled in the Azovstal plant and attacked with chemical weapons.
Source: RIA Novosti [RIA News], on Telegram
Denys Pushylin, leader of the unrecognised Donetsk People’s Republic, has said that at least 1,500 Ukrainian soldiers are encircled near the Azovstal plant.
Basurin, one of the leaders of the so-called “national militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” stated that there was no point in trying to storm the underground fortifications in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
According to Basurin: “There is no point in storming this facility [the Azovstal plant] because of its underground levels. Because we can lose many of our soldiers without doing any damage to the opponent.
So right now we have to figure out how to blockade this plant, to find all entry and exit points – in theory, this can be done. And then, I think, we’d have to ask the chemical specialists, who will find a way to smoke those rats out of their holes.”