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In Mariupol - one and a half thousand dead. In occupied Melitopol, the mayor was kidnapped. In the FSB unit responsible for Ukraine, arrests

Hello,

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This is Meduza's daily mailing list. Here we briefly talk about the main events related to the war in Ukraine that took place during the day.

The authorities of Mariupol announced the death of 1582 civilians during the blockade

The reason in the message of the Mariupol City Council is the "merciless" shelling of residential areas. The "humanitarian corridor" to the surrounded city has not been opened all these days; On the night of March 11, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced a tank attack by Russians in the place where a convoy with humanitarian aid was supposed to pass. “They have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, to mock him,” he said.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation offers an alternative picture of what is happening in Mariupol: according to the agency, in the city "armed persons walk the streets, open indiscriminate fire, thereby forcing the civilian population to stay in their homes," and the approaches to the city have been destroyed and mined by "nationalists."

The UN Human Rights Office officially recorded the deaths of 564 civilians during the war. At least 982 people were injured.

In Russian-occupied Melitopol, the mayor was kidnapped. In the LPR and DPR announced that they suspect him of assisting terrorism

According to the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, was abducted by the Russian military on the afternoon of March 11. by The video published Tymoshenko shows how a man is being forcibly led across the square by people in uniform.

Shortly thereafter, the Prosecutor General's Offices of both the DPR and the LPR announced the initiation of criminal cases against Fedorov for "assisting terrorist activities" - allegedly he "provided financial and other assistance to the Right Sector nationalist organization" (recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation and banned) " in committing terrorist crimes against civilians of Donbass.

Melitopol is a city in the Zaporozhye region, which is not part of the DPR and LPR, even from the point of view of these self-proclaimed republics. Whether there is any backstory to Fedorov's accusation of helping Right Sector, Meduza was unable to find out quickly.

According to reports not only from the Ukrainian side, but also from the Russian side, the mayors of the Ukrainian cities that fell under the control of the Russian Federation refuse to cooperate with the Russian authorities. The other day, the Russian Ministry of Defense explicitly stated that "the Kiev authorities have forbidden mayors of cities from any contacts with the Russian side, including the organization of humanitarian corridors," and "all those who disagree are simply shot."

From the materials published by the SBU , which the Russian military is allegedly distributing in Berdyansk, it follows that the lack of cooperation is a problem for Russia: the leaflets explicitly call “criminal” “ignoring the leadership of the city and the region of the presence of Russian authorities.” According to the Ukrainian side, Russia is trying to distribute its propaganda in the occupied cities - Kherson, Melitopol, Berdyansk (including through television), and local residents regularly go to protests.

Russia is going to ban Meta

The Prosecutor General's Office asked the court to recognize the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp as an "extremist organization" because of its decision not to remove calls for violence against the Russian military (for example, "death to the Russian occupiers") as a "form of political expression." Instagram will be blocked from March 14, following Facebook, access to which has already been closed. The Investigative Committee considered Meta's actions as incitement to extremism and assistance to terrorism and opened a criminal case against the company's employees, including its press secretary.

What consequences - other than blocking Instagram - this decision will have is not yet clear. Members of the Russian parliament are commenting a lot on what is happening, and if you believe them: a) Facebook and Instagram users will not be held criminally liable ; b) advertisers, if Meta is recognized as an extremist organization, on the contrary, can be held accountable ; in Russia c) WhatsApp will not be blocked . But it is important to remember that the opinion of the State Duma deputies and senators, unfortunately, does not give grounds to judge what will actually happen (remember, for example, recent discussions about “Russia’s recognition of the DPR and LPR within their real borders”).

Russia wants to send thousands of “volunteers” from the Middle East, as well as Russian mercenaries, to the war

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in a report to Vladimir Putin, spoke about more than 16,000 applications from people "who would like to come to the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics to participate in what they consider to be the liberation movement." The President supported the idea: “We must meet them halfway and help them move to the war zone.” He argued that "Western sponsors of Ukraine", "neglecting all the norms of international law", send mercenaries to Ukraine (not to be confused with volunteers!).

An important detail: according to the interlocutors of The Wall Street Journal, which the other day was the first to write about Russia's plans to involve Syrians in the war, we are talking about people with experience in fighting in the city. Here is how Vladimir Zelensky commented on Russia's plans:

“This is how Russian troops treat Ukrainians. This is how they treat Donbass, as they said, to Russian-speaking people <…> Rockets, air bombs, artillery. And now here are the Syrian mercenaries, who do not distinguish at all who speaks what language here, what church they go to, what party they supported. Mercenaries who simply go to kill in a foreign - in every sense of the word - in a foreign land.

As for Russian mercenaries, according to the BBC Russian Service, the Wagner PMC began a “big recruitment” to send to the war, and for this allegedly abandoned almost all recent restrictions (for example, not to hire residents of the Crimea, DPR or LPR, as well as people without a police clearance certificate or with debts). One of the sources said that the "main staff" of the PMC is not involved in what is happening, but "all sorts of rabble" are being recruited. “We call them among ourselves penal battalions with boys,” the BBC quoted him as saying.

Putin may have started crackdowns on the FSB department in charge of Ukraine

According to journalists and writers Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, who have been writing about the Russian special services for many years, Sergei Beseda, the head of the 5th FSB service, was sent under house arrest, which was engaged, in particular, in intelligence in the post-Soviet space and tried to promote the Kremlin's interests in these countries, including Ukraine. Here is what Soldatov and Borogan write :

“It was the 5th service that was responsible for providing Vladimir Putin with information about political events in Ukraine on the eve of the invasion. And it seems that after two weeks of the war, Putin finally realized that he was simply misled: the 5th service, afraid to anger the leader, simply supplied him with what he himself wanted to hear.

Now our sources report that General Beseda and his deputy have been placed under house arrest. Among the reasons are the misuse of funds allocated for operations, as well as poor intelligence information. And indeed: the intelligence service of Putin's career intelligence officer, as it turned out, was put out of hand very badly.

No war. Your Medusa