The Kremlin this morning rejected reports that Russian forces in Mariupol had launched an assault on the Azovstal steel plant, where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian troops and Azov Brigade militants are under siege. “Publicly, the supreme commander-in-chief handed down an order to call off the assault. There is no assault. All of us see that flare-ups occur when militants get out to assume gun emplacements. These attempts are suppressed quite promptly,” Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at the Kremlin this morning.
The Associated Press, citing Ukrainian sources, claimed in a report yesterday that Russian forces had begun storming the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, implying that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order had been rescinded, when in fact it is still in effect.
