You're reading: Interior Ministry: Mariupol City Council building liberated

Ukrainian security forces have conducted a successful operation to liberate the Mariupol City Council building in the Donetsk region from separatists who earlier seized it, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.

“Mariupol. The City Council has been liberated for normal work. The
role of civic activists was great. The Interior Ministry currently
organizes its normal functioning. Bomb disposal experts will examine the
building now. The City Council is being taken under protection,” Avakov
said on Facebook on Thursday morning.

“In this particular case, we have avoided casualties. This is good
and right. The process of normalizing the situation in the city will be
continued,” he said.

“The mayor is already inside. As we said before: dissidents will have
a dialogue and a discourse, and terrorists will face a tough response
up to elimination,” he said.