What did 20 May 2022 close in Mariupol?

What did the end of the defence of Mariupol look like on 20 May 2022? It looked like two accounts of the same event arriving on the same day: one from Moscow, one from Kyiv.

Russia said that its forces had seized the Azovstal steel plant after the last remaining Ukrainian troops surrendered. Ukraine's chief military command, for its part, ordered all remaining troops in the plant to stop defending Mariupol. Together, the two statements marked the close of the siege of the city.

A second front, still moving

The day's news was not confined to the port. In Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine said that it had repelled a Russian advance on the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Authorities reported that twelve people had been killed in the offensive and that more than 60 houses had been destroyed. The Donbas offensive, in other words, continued while the focus lay on Mariupol.

Money from abroad

One day earlier, on 19 May 2022, the United States Senate had voted 86–11 to pass a $40 billion package aimed at sending aid to Ukraine. The legislation was to go to the US president, Joe Biden, for his signature. The vote and the Azovstal order came within a day of each other, though the reports do not link them.

What the day showed

As reported at the time, 20 May 2022 combined an ending and a continuation: the order to stop defending Mariupol on one side, and the reported fighting around Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk on the other. For readers following the war from abroad, the day set out where the fighting stood in the south and the east, and the scale of the aid that the US Senate had approved.