Putin tells Ukrainian militants they should surrender

The Russian president said that the Ukrainian militants should have another chance to surrender to the Russian president, giving them a chance to surrender.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called off an attack on the Azovstal steel plant in the Black Sea port of Mariupol during a meeting with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu on Thursday. According to Shoigu, the facility still contains 2,000 Ukrainian militants, including the Neo-Nazi Azov'' regiment.

Putin told the defense chief that in this case, they should not be sent to attack the steel plant because they have to think about preserving the lives and health of our soldiers and officers.

The president said that one shouldn't get into those catacombs and crawl there underground, in these industrial facilities. The Azovstal steel plant was built back in Soviet times and has a vast network of well-fortified underground tunnels built to withstand heavy bombardments. Yan Gagin, an aide to the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, described these tunnels as an underground city.

The rebels of the Ukrainian army, including the notorious Azov regiment, have since used these tunnels as their last line of defense. On Thursday, Shoigu told Putin that Russian forces and the Donbass republics' militias have fully seized the city of Mariupol except for the Azovstal plant complex.

Shoigu said that a military operation at the plant could be completed in three to four days, presumably planning to storm the facility. Putin has ordered his troops to seal the area so that a fly can't get through. The president has offered those who are encroaching at the plant another chance to surrender. If someone has not laid down their arms yet, offer them that, he told Shoigu, and Russia guarantees them their lives as well as decent treatment under all international norms. The president said that those injured will get qualified medical treatment.

Russia has twice tried to organize humanitarian corridors for those willing to leave the Azovstal plant over the past few days, but both attempts failed. The Ukrainian forces and the Azov militants demanded they be allowed to leave while keeping their personal weapons through the assistance of an unnamed third party. Kiev blamed Moscow for the fact that attempts to create humanitarian corridors had failed.

Russia attacked its neighbor after Ukraine didn't implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, signed in 2014, and Moscow's eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French Minsk Protocol was created to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists that the Russian offensive is completely unprovoked and has denied that it is planning to retake the two republics by force.