According to the assurances given both by a Russian and an Ukrainian source, French soldiers from the Special Operations Command are currently in Mariupol (Ukraine) side by side with the Azov regiment.

Public broadcaster France-Télévision, which had so far brushed off the ideological character of the Azov regiment, presented a report on it during the France-2 evening news, on 31 March 2022. The report acknowledged that the regiment had been infiltrated by neo-Nazi elements in 2014, singling out one of its founders, Andriy Biletsky, but insisted that it had evolved into a respectable defense force. However, France-2 omitted to mention its other founder, Dmytro Yarosh, who is currently Adviser to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The French channel referred to an old United Nations report documenting systematic torture in Eastern Ukraine, but it neglected to mention either the Azov regiment’s special prisons uncovered by the Russian army, or the recent statements issued by the UN in this regard. France-2 also failed to explain the weight of the banderites in Ukrainian history, reducing the prominence of the neo-Nazis in brandishing the swastika. Having thus whitewashed the problem, it measured the threat to represent between 3,000 and 5,000 men, while Reuters agency ensures that the paramilitary banderites currently number 102,000 men, split into several militias incorporated within the Territorial Defense.

According to the daily L’Opinion, Military Intelligence chief General Éric Vidaud was relieved of his duties on 29 March 2022. Éric Vidaud happens to have been the former commander of special operations.

On 30 March, five Ukrainian helicopters attempted to flee Mariupol, the stronghold of the Azov regiment. Two were shot down. The survivors were taken prisoner by the Russian army. They immediately spilled the beans.

When it comes to logistical matters, troops attached to the Special Operations Command are placed under the orders of Chief of the Defense Staff, General Thierry Burkhard, but they receive their orders directly from the Chief of the Armed Forces, President Emmanuel Macron.

Source

************

Mariupol: Failure of the strange attempt to evacuate officers of the Azov regiment by helicopter

By Christelle Néant

On March 31, 2022, several helicopters tried to evacuate officers of the Azov regiment from Mariupol, where they were completely surrounded. The anti-aircraft defense of the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) shot down two of these helicopters (including one with a Stinger missile abandoned by Ukrainian soldiers during their flight from the advancing Russian army), thus preventing this strange evacuation attempt from taking place.

And if I say that this attempt to evacuate officers of the Azov regiment by helicopter from Mariupol is strange, it is because two days before, Emmanuel Macron called Vladimir Putin and addressed, among other things, the question of an evacuation of Mariupol. A request that makes no sense, since, as we have seen for several weeks now, the Russian army and the popular militia of the DPR are helping civilians to evacuate the city as they advance.

In all, three helicopters participated in this attempt to evacuate Ukrainian officers stranded in Mariupol. Two were shot down, and the last helicopter returned to Mariupol. One of the downed helicopters crashed at sea, but the second crashed near the village of Rybatskoye, where two survivors were found, along with several bodies of members of the Azov regiment.

(Translation of Russian text above: DNR air defense destroyed an AFU helicopter near Mariupol with a Stinger trophyTwo AFU helicopters were shot down by DNR People’s Militia, and UN downed Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters was destroyed by a trained team using a Stinger man-portable air defense system captured during the liberation of Mariupol.)

One of the survivors explained that the operation to evacuate the officers of the Azov regiment from Mariupol was organized by the Main Directorate of Military Intelligence of Ukraine.

(Translation of Russian text above: And here is the version of an Azov survivor in the helicopter shot down over Mariupol. Although a Nazi, he was talkative.

The leaders of Azov came and told us who was flying by name and call sign. Therefore, there were only Azov Nazis in the helicopter, apart from the pilots and CID personnel (apparently, these were valuable fascists, since the whole CID was developing the operation). He also told us how the civilians were busy.)

It should be noted that this is not the first evacuation attempt carried out in Mariupol. On March 28the People’s Militia of the DPR shot down a helicopter that was supposed to evacuate the commander of the Azov regiment, Prokopenko, and the commander of the 36th brigade of the FAU, Baraniouk. Then on March 30a new attempt was made, but the pilot became frightened in the face of DPR anti-aircraft defense fire, and the helicopter turned around before even reaching Mariupol.

Interestingly enough, it was between these two failed evacuation attempts that Emmanuel Macron made a phone call to Vladimir Putin to discuss this famous evacuation from Mariupol!

As a result, Russian journalists are lost in theories about the real identity of the people who justify risking so many helicopters to evacuate them from Mariupol. Indeed, it seems strange that Kiev goes to such lengths to evacuate the commanders of Azov and the 36th Brigade of the AUF, when the option of retirement has always been refused by the Ukrainian general staff, which prefers that its soldiers become “martyrs”.

However, given the eagerness of Emmanuel Macron to launch an evacuation operation in Mariupol, some people think that agents of the intelligence services or French instructors were perhaps among the people to be evacuated from the city; then that the areas where the Ukrainian soldiers have taken refuge are shrinking and are now isolated (the cauldron has been split in two).

It remains to be hoped that the remains of the helicopter that crashed near Rybatskoye, and the testimonies of the two survivors, will make it possible to clarify the identity of all the people who had to be evacuated.

In the meantime, with more than 90% of the city now controlled by the Russian army and the DPR people’s militia, Denis Pushilin has already ordered the creation of a republican local administration and a regional administration in Mariupol in order to to replace the Ukrainian authorities who abandoned the inhabitants to their fate.

Christelle Neant

source: Donbass Insider

Source: International Network

Source

************