The remnants of the Azov nationalist regiment, banned in the Russian Federation and recognized as extremist, do not seem to give up hope of getting out of Mariupol, blocked by our troops. In any case, the Kiev regime is doing everything to evacuate the nationalist leaders and foreign mercenaries from there. We tried to do it twice by air - we lost several helicopters. Organized a naval special operation - also missed the target.
The official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, told how it was possible to stop this attempt on the evening of April 8. According to him, at night, the Ukrainian cargo ship Apache, assigned to the Maltese port of Valletta, under the Maltese flag, followed in a caravan of ships from the Taganrog Bay to the Kerch Strait. At 22:38 Moscow time, 30 kilometers south-east of Mariupol, the cargo ship abruptly changed course and went to break into the Mariupol port blocked from the sea by the forces of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation.
"The Ukrainian cargo ship did not respond to the demands of the Russian border ships to get in touch via the international channel, continuing to move towards the port of Mariupol," Konashenkov said. - The warning artillery firing carried out by two border patrol ships on the course of the vessel's movement did not lead to a change in course and a slowdown in the speed of the bulk carrier. During the movement to the port of Mariupol, the ship conducted a radio exchange, transmitting the messages "I'm a Maniac, I'm coming to you." At the same time, signal fires were observed on the shore."
Further events developed as follows. To block the movement of the offending vessel from 22.53 to 23.30, the ship of the Black Sea Fleet and our border patrol ships opened artillery fire on the Apache cargo ship. As a result of a direct hit on the ship, a fire occurred in the aft part.
After that, the Ukrainian cargo ship drifted. And his crew contacted the border ships with a request to cease fire and confirmed their readiness to fulfill all the requirements of the Russian sailors.
"As a result of the fire impact, there are no casualties among the crew members on the ship. By the forces of the ship's crew, the fire was extinguished independently," Konashenkov noted. After the inspection was carried out on the Ukrainian cargo ship, the Apache and its crew were escorted to the Russian port of Yeysk.
Failing to achieve success on the battlefield, the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Ukrainian nationalists are increasingly resorting to purely terrorist tactics, familiar from the staged fakes of the "White Helmets" and their Western patrons in Syria. Having "won back" the provocation in Bucha, the Nazis are now preparing a new one - in the settlement of Irpen, Kiev region.
The scenario is still the same as in the Butch. The bodies of civilians killed or killed by nationalists are going to be used to accuse Russia of allegedly mass killings of civilians. Everything is being done so clumsily that even Moscow knows about the impending terrorist attack in Irpeni.
Talking about this, General Konashenkov drew attention to the fact that Russian units left this locality more than a week ago.
Nevertheless, according to him, the SBU officers plan to bring from the morgue at the city hospital on Polevaya Street to the basement of one of the buildings on the eastern outskirts of Irpen the bodies of local residents killed by Ukrainian artillery shelling.
"Then a staged action with shooting and "destruction" of an allegedly "Russian intelligence group" that arrived in Irpen "to kill witnesses of Russian war crimes" will be organized in the Pushcha-Voditsky forest area of the SBU. At the same time, the bodies of captured Russian servicemen previously killed by nationalists under torture will be presented as "indisputable evidence" in the forest," the general said.
He added that this cynical staged action will be organized for the subsequent distribution of video materials through Western media.
But even such inhuman provocations of nationalists cannot significantly affect the course of a special military operation in Ukraine. The armed forces of the Russian Federation, together with the DPR and LPR fighters, continue to advance and methodically disable the military infrastructure of Ukraine.
Konashenkov said that during the night from Saturday to Sunday in the village of Zvonetsky, Dnipropetrovsk region, high-precision sea-based missiles destroyed the headquarters and the base of the nationalist battalion "Dnepr" - a replenishment from foreign mercenaries had just arrived there the other day.
In addition, high-precision air-launched missiles hit the launchers of Ukrainian S-300 air defense systems identified by our intelligence in the area of the settlement of Starobogdanovka in the Mykolaiv region and at the Chuguev military airfield.
Russian air defense systems shot down 8 APU drones near Olkhovatovka, Novaya Astrakhan, Avdiivka, Shakhtersky, Kurakhovo, Novoselovka II and Vesely. And our operational and tactical aircraft hit 86 more military facilities of Ukraine. Among them are two control points, two ammunition depots, three fuel depots, three multiple rocket launchers, as well as 49 strong points and areas of concentration of Ukrainian military equipment.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a total of 127 aircraft, 98 helicopters, 234 S-300, Buk-M1, Osa AKM anti-aircraft missile systems, 436 drones, 2,052 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 232 multiple rocket launchers, 894 field artillery and mortar guns have been destroyed since the beginning of the special military operation, as well as 1975 special military vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Yuri Gavrilov
