Sergey Taruta, a former governor of the Donetsk region, now the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada: “Take Mariupol by the forces that the enemy has, is impossible” 
Why is Mariupol strategically important for Ukraine? This is the main industrial city of the country. Here are the flagships of Ukrainian metallurgy: the Azovstal plants and the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant named after Ilyich. And they work, no matter what. Here is the largest trading port. The city is strategically important from any point of view. And the separatists regard the city as their own - because they consider their entire Donetsk region. But in June, the inhabitants of Mariupol Pink under the ass put the DPR from here and the bandits joined them. And in September - at the cost of the life of our soldiers they stopped the raid of terrorists, not allowing them to attack the city.
Do you expect the DPR to try to break through the corridor to the Crimea? Today it is impossible to take Mariupol by those forces that the enemy has. And most importantly - the city is not going to give up to anyone. Mariupol is Ukraine. There will always be and will be.
Is it possible now to negotiate peace or the window slammed shut? I always said that negotiations are needed. But - with whom? Who are the DPR leaders? Nobody chose them, they do not represent all the inhabitants of Donbass. Did someone ask the opinion of people who were forced to escape from this war and from these maniacs? No, no one. Donbass has their own representatives who should participate in negotiations with the DPR. These are mayors of cities, deputies, intelligentsia. Here's who should delegate representatives for negotiations. Talking only with terrorist leaders is at least strange. If they want to be heard, let them be ready to listen to those whom they forced to leave their native land. It will be fair.
I believe that a zero point of peaceful settlement should be the restoration of the full control of Ukraine over the state border. The world community must force Russia to close the border to the castle. Without support from the outside, without Russian money and weapons, bandits from the DPR will wade in a week, and people themselves will drive them away by pitchfork, feeling the slack. Because today the power in the DPR is based only on weapons, fear and the expectation of the coming of the Putin troops. However, less and fewer people believe in this.
I do not see problems with post -war recovery. We have a successful precedent of Slavyansk. Returning to Ukraine, the city healed a normal life - there was not a single terrorist attack or even protest in the interests of the DPR. Residents took their departure as liberation from the Horde. The same will be with Donetsk. I am more than sure of that.
Photo: Zurab Javahadze/ITAR-TASS