Crime
More Than 1,000 Ukraine Marines Surrender in Key Port of Mariupol, Says Russia
By Derrick Bangura
More than 1,000 Ukrainian marines have surrendered in the besieged port of Mariupol, Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday of Moscow’s main target in the eastern Donbas region which it has yet to bring under its control.
If the Russians take the Azovstal industrial district, where the marines have been holed up, they would be in full control of Mariupol, which would allow Russia to reinforce a land corridor between separatist-held eastern areas and the Crimea region that it seized and annexed in 2014.
Surrounded by Russian troops for weeks, Mariupol would be the first major city to fall since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, with the battle for the industrial heartland of Donbas likely to define the course of the war.
Ukraine’s general staff said that Russian forces were proceeding with attacks on Azovstal and the port, but a defence ministry spokesman said he had no information about any surrender.
Reuters journalists accompanying Russian-backed separatists saw flames billowing from the Azovstal district on Tuesday.
On Monday, the 36th Marine Brigade said it was preparing for a final battle in Mariupol that would end in death or capture as its troops had run out of ammunition.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed in Mariupol and Russia has been massing thousands of troops in the area for a new assault, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
Ukraine says tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped inside the city with no way to bring in food or water, and accuses Russia of blocking aid convoys.
Russia’s defence ministry said that 1,026 soldiers of Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade surrendered, including 162 officers.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS WARNING
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ardent supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, urged remaining Ukrainians holed up in Azovstal to surrender.
“Within Azovstal at the moment there are about 200 wounded who cannot receive any medical assistance,” Kadyrov said in a Telegram post. “For them and all the rest it would be better to end this pointless resistance and go home to their families.”
Russian television showed pictures of what it said were marines giving themselves up at Illich Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol on Tuesday, many of them wounded.
It showed what it said were Ukrainian soldiers being marched down a road with their hands in the air. One of the soldiers was shown holding a Ukrainian passport.
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar has said there was a high risk of Russia using chemical weapons, echoing earlier warnings by Zelenskiy, who on Wednesday told the Estonian parliament by videolink Russia was using phosphorus bombs to terrorise civilians.
He did not provide evidence and Reuters has not been able to independently verify his assertion.
Chemical weapons production, use and stockpiling is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Although condemned by human rights groups, white phosphorous is not banned.
Russia denies using chemical weapons, saying it had destroyed its last chemical stockpiles in 2017.
Moscow’s incursion into Ukraine, the biggest attack on a European state since 1945, has seen more than 4.6 million people flee abroad, killed or wounded thousands and left Russia increasingly isolated on the world stage.
The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said 191 children had been killed and 349 wounded since the start of the invasion.
The Kremlin says it launched a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western allies reject that as a false pretext for an unprovoked attack.
FOUR PRESIDENTS VISITING KYIV
The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were on their way to Kyiv to meet Zelenskiy, an adviser to the Polish leader said on Wednesday.
The four join a growing number of European politicians to visit the Ukrainian capital since Russian forces were driven away from the country’s north earlier this month.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine amounted to genocide, as Putin said Russia would “rhythmically and calmly” continue its operation and achieve its goals.
Russia has denied targeting civilians and has said Ukrainian and Western allegations of war crimes are fabricated.
Many towns Russia has retreated from in northern Ukraine were littered with the bodies of civilians killed in what Kyiv says was a campaign of murder, torture and rape.
Interfax Ukraine news agency on Wednesday quoted the Kyiv district police chief saying 720 bodies had been found in the region around the capital, with more than 200 people missing.
The General Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian forces were maintaining attacks on civilian infrastructure in the Kharkiv region in the northeast and the Zaporizhzhia region in central Ukraine.
At least seven people were killed and 22 wounded in Kharkiv over the past 24 hours, Governor Oleh Synegubov said. A 2-year-old boy was among those killed in the 53 artillery or rocket strikes Russian forces had carried out in the region, he said in an online post.
Reuters could not independently verify the information.
Russia denies targeting civilians. Putin on Tuesday used his first public comments on the conflict in more than a week to say Russia would “rhythmically and calmly” continue its operation, and expressed confidence his goals would be achieved.
Zelenskiy mocked Putin in an early morning address: “How could a plan that provides for the death of tens of thousands of their own soldiers in a little more than a month of war come about?”
The police in Lagos have dragged two women, Mmesuma Ofunna, and Blessing Adimekwe, before an Ojo Magistrates’ Court in Lagos, over alleged obtaining money by false pretence.
Ofunna, 22, and Adimekwe, 25, were arraigned before the Magistrate, Mr L K J Layeni, on a four-count charge bordering on conspiracy, obtaining by false pretence, stealing and conduct likely to breach peace.
They each, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The prosecutor, ASP Simon Uche, told the court that the defendants conspired with others now at large, to commit the offence on Oct. 26 at the Okokomaiko area of Ojo.
He alleged that they had obtained the sum of N70, 000 from one Faith Ahamefule, with a promise not to post her nude photo on social media.
The prosecutor alleged that the defendants later posted the nude photo of the nominal complainant on social media, knowing that their promise was false.
He alleged that they stole the N70, 0000, thereby conducting themselves in a manner likely to breach public peace.
The offence contravenes the provisions of sections 168(d), 287, 314, and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015.
The court granted the defendants bails in the sum of N500, 000 each, with two sureties each in like sum.
He adjourned the case until Jan. 8, 2025 for mention.
A Jos Magistrates’ Court on Monday, sentenced a 26-year-old Mechanic, Sadiq Umar to 15 months imprisonment for pickpocketing from passengers.
The Magistrate, Shawomi Bokkos, summarily tried and sentenced the convict after he pleaded guilty to the charge.
Bokkos in his judgment, ordered the convict to pay an option of N100, 000 fine or spend one year in prison.
He also asked him to pay a compensation of N15, 000 or an additional three months in prison in default.
Earlier, the Prosecutor, Insp Ijuptil Thiawur, told the court that the case was reported on Nov.16, at the “A” Division Police station by Moses Pam, Alexander Bakshak and Simon Justice the complaints.
Thiawur said that the convict attempted to steal from them before he was caught in the act and when the driver stopped the vehicle to search him he fled but was caught.
The Police said that the offence contravened the Plateau Penal Code Law.
The Zone-2 Police Command in Lagos says it has detained two suspected international fraudsters that allegedly specialised in forging foreign certificates in Lagos and Ghana.
The AIG in charge of the zone, Adegoke Fayaode, confirmed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday.
Fayoade said that the suspects allegedly offered N66m to the operatives with a view to free them but the offer was turned down.
NAN reports that the same zone operatives rejected a N174m bribe offered by a suspect in November to set him free.
Fayoade said that the suspects simply identified as Elvis, 23 and Kelly, 24, allegedly specialised in forging certificates of different nations and African Universities and defrauding their unsuspecting victims on the internet.
He said that the suspects have succeeded in acquiring exotic cars and erecting mansions in different parts of the country with the proceeds of their loot.
The AIG pointed out that luck ran out of the suspects after detectives at the Anti-Corruption Unit of the Zone received credible information from Nigerians in diaspora concerning some group of boys that specialised in forging foreign certificates.
According to him, on getting the information, he detailed the anti-corruption unit to investigate it and arrest the suspects without delay.
Fayoade said that based on his directives, the detectives stormed Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos waiting for the arrival of the suspects, whom they trailed to a five star hotel at Osapa-London in Lekki Area.
He said that the operatives arrested the suspects at a bus stop while they were about to escape secretly from the hotel, after monitoring their activities.
“Searching their luggage, one certificate of Blue Crest College, Ghana, belonging to Elvis and a student identity card of Academic City College belonging to Kelly were recovered.
“Further search revealed a transcript of an academic record from Blue Crest University belonging to Elvis.
“A letter of English proficiency from the said college and a letter of recommendation from the same Blue Crest College were recovered,” he said.
The AIG said that the suspects made useful statements to the police and confessed that they never got any admission into the school, stressing that they only procured the degree certificates through the help of a female Nigerian resident in Ghana.
“The suspects further confessed that the major aim of doing that is to enable them to get Ghana resident permit, which they got.
“The resident permit is showing them also as a student of Academic City University and that none of them has ever been admitted in the school.
“They claimed they paid a total of 26,000 Ghana Cedis for all the documents procured.
“They confessed that they procured all the documents to evade arrest in Ghana since they don’t have any means of livelihood.
Whenever police intercepted them, they showed their passports that they were students in Ghana.”
Fayoade said that the suspects were also allegedly involved in online romance scam, provision of foreign bank accounts for fraudulent transactions on the internet through what they call ‘Facebook bombing’.
He said the suspects presented themselves as an American soldier by name Captain Donald Rowe, serving in Syria, whom they impersonated on Instagram, using his name to defraud innocent persons.
The AIG said that while detectives were making frantic efforts to get more credible information from the suspects, they started negotiating to bribe the operatives for them to be set free.
“I directed my men to play along and recover the money as an exhibit. Subsequently, the detectives played along and the suspects paid them a sum of N66m, which they collected and kept as an exhibit.
“The Nigeria Police authorities have written to the Ghana embassy to get more information about the result and their suspected partners in Ghana said to be spearheading the fraud.
Fayoade said that they had also spread their dragnets through the International Police, Interpol, to round up their foreign accomplices.
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