Russia claims to have captured the last bastion of Mariupol from Ukraine's final defenders of the city

• Russia has claimed to have captured Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant, according to state-owned media.

• Azovstal marked the final pocket of Ukrainian resistance in defense of the bombarded port city.

• Russia's capture of the city marks the end of a months-long devastating and deadly siege.

Russia claimed on Friday to have captured Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant, where the final pocket of Ukrainian resistance was defending the bombarded port city.

A Russian defense ministry spokesperson told the state-owned news agency TASS that the steel plant was "completely liberated" on Friday with the surrender of 531 Ukrainian fighters.

TASS reported that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed President Vladimir Putin that Azovstal and Mariupol were under the control of Russian forces.

This week, Ukraine evacuated many of its soldiers from the steel plant, where they had been holed up alongside civilians for weeks as Russian forces closed in on Mariupol. Aid organizations managed to evacuate civilians earlier in May through humanitarian convoys.

Russia's capture of Mariupol marks the end of a months-long devastating siege on the southern port city that officials say has left thousands of civilians dead, as the city's defenders and thousands of civilians sheltered in bunkers and tunnels inside the sprawling steel complex built when Ukraine was part of the USSR.

Inside the facility, the fighters — many of were part of the Azov Battalion linked to the far-right — held out for weeks longer than expected and denied Russia a victory before the May 9 celebrations in Russia. In late April, Putin decided to temporarily call off the assault on Azovstal and demanded Ukrainians inside surrender. After his statements, a commander of forces inside Azovstal told Insider that shelling was continuing and that his forces would not surrender.

A bombing campaign of Mariupol targeted a school, maternity hospital, theater, and shelters — reducing the city to rubble.

Azovstal eventually became Ukraine's final stand in the strategic city, where Russia sought to establish a land corridor from occupied Crimea to the eastern Donbas region.

Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.

Read the original article on Business Insider