Nightvision for the Saker Blog – April 30, 2022

Firstly, the biggest news at the forefront is that the Mariupol situation appears to be nearing a possible conclusion. We reported last time that one prominent source said Azovstal would be fully resolved by 4/30 (today), while Sladkov said days ago that Azov had about 9 days of food left, which by now would put them at maybe 6 days or less, by those estimations.

We also reported that negotiators had arrived and were settling in to the small villages around Mariupol. Now today there is a large, full blown UN / Red Cross operation under way to evacuate the civilians in the Azovstal factory.

https://twitter.com/Cyberspec1/status/1520315875865235456

https://twitter.com/Caucasuswar/status/1520382581811953665

Now as many have seen a family was the first to leave the Azovstal factory yesterday, and now today it’s being reported by Novosti that 25 people have been released, including 6 children. The interesting thing is that the first family released said there were “70+ others” left in the bunkers, though I’m unclear if they meant 70 people or 70 families (presuming it’s total people). This is in stark contrast to Azov’s claim that over ‘1000’ civilians were hiding beneath the factory. It’s clear that Azov likely lied to inflate the numbers for obvious reasons.

With the UN and Redcross involved, it’s unclear what the terms of the current negotiations are. Here’s one report:

“In Bezymenny (Novoazvsky district of the DPR), negotiations are underway regarding the evacuation of civilians from the territory of Azostal. Representatives of the UN and the IWC are participating.
Earlier, the Kremlin has already outlined its position on these negotiations – the evacuation of civilians can be easily carried out, the main obstacles to the evacuation are the Nazis themselves, who do not want to let go of the human shield.
Nobody is going to let the Nazis go, there will be no humanitarian corridors for them.
The only chance for them is to surrender.”

You can see dozens of evacuation buses there: https://twitter.com/uasupport999/status/1520465607422091264

A rough calculation of ~30 buses, with maybe ~30-50 people per bus could be enough for over 1000+ people, so either the original Azov civilian estimates were right OR the UN is really hoping to evacuate their Azov terrorists as well. At the moment Azov is pleading to at least evacuate the wounded and the wives/families of trapped Azov have been rallying now for the release of their militants along with the civilians as well:

https://twitter.com/uasupport999/status/1520434237366845440

Anything could happen but there’s a chance that the entire Azovstal saga could end in the next day or two. The plant appears surrounded as Russian forces have captured everything but the main complex where they’re all hiding, and though the remaining Azov/marine militants are said to be numbered in the 2000 range, upwards of 600+ or more of them are said to be wounded or incapacitated.

Head of the DPR Denis Pushilin believes it will all end very soon. He has stated: ‘“Very soon, I really count on it, the situation with Azovstal in Mariupol will be completed, and we will see a large number of mercenaries there,”– he said on the air of Channel One.’

Pushilin also announced large construction sites in Mariupol will start as soon as Azovstal is done, and DPR spokesman Basurin said that a park in memory of those killed in Mariupol might be laid out on the site of the former Azovstal factory complex.

Though videos still come out showing some Mariupol fighting, we were told that most of them are as much as 10 days old due to the timed release method of information so that the enemy does not see current RF troop movements, so the fighting likely has already ended, though Azov/Arestovich still claim that their fighters conduct “sorties” above ground “when they are able to” – whatever that means.

With that said, one amusing video was released of close quarter fighting which shows Russian marines storming a building while attempting to communicate with some of the foreign mercenaries trapped there in both English and French:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/7Fw9mrmqmh0D/

And on the topic of mercenaries, there’s been a deluge of new updates.

Not only was another British merc named Andrew Hill captured and interrogated:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/O7UxnZSugNA1/

But the first American mercenary death was announced:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/22-year-old-marine-turned-mercenary-becomes-1st-american-die-fighting-russia-ukraine

While Russia also captured two British NGO workers near Zaporizhzhia:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61268817

And British press is now reporting on the death of Scott Sibley, a mercenary we reported on last time:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61260402

Also, there was one unconfirmed report that said:

1h

“#IMPORTANT Russian Spetsnaz unit in #Kherson captured 2 Russian-speaking British #SAS operatives on April 21, after a leak of their position from #Kiev. They were conducting recon for #London (these are not mercenaries). Leak suspected from #Zelensky’s office or #Ukrainian MFA.”

This is not unbelievable as we’ve already reported last time that SAS is openly working in Kiev and elsewhere.

A Georgian mercenary fighting for Azov was not so fortunate.

https://twitter.com/DonbasTh/status/1520126930208628737

His before and after:

Continues …