Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in Mariupol Thursday, shortly after calling off an attack on the last Ukrainian defenders, as they were preparing to make a last stand at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works complex.

“The completion of the combat operation to liberate Mariupol is a success,” Putin said Thursday during a televised meeting with his defense minister Sergei Shoigu, state-run media outlet TASS reported.

“I consider the proposed storming of the industrial zone unnecessary,” Putin told Shoigu . “I order you to cancel it. There is no need to climb into these catacombs and crawl underground through these industrial facilities.”

The Russian leader ordered his troops to blockade the sprawling metalworks instead, turning the apparent stay of execution into a threat: that the assembled troops and civilians taking refuge there might die like so many others in the port city — from deprivation under siege.

“Block off this industrial area so that a fly cannot not pass through,” Putin said.

The Russian leader said that defenders would be treated humanely and offered medical care if they surrendered.

A Ukrainian commander holed up in the tunnels spoke Wednesday to the Washington Post about a similar, earlier surrender offer.

“No one believes the Russians,” he said.

The Mariupol hold-outs, an assortment of Ukrainian marines, guardsmen and far-right militia members, said Wednesday that they had some 500 wounded. It’s also estimated that roughly 1,000 civilians are taking refuge in the steel plant’s tunnel system.

Mariupol has been a strategic goal for Moscow since the start of the Russian invasion in late February. A major Donbas port on the Sea of Azov, Mariupol separated Russian forces pushing into the Donbas from Ukraine’s eastern border from their comrades invading from Russian-held Crimea.

If Mariupol is in fact under Russian control, it would represent only the second large city to fall since the war began, and a strategic victory in a war where, for Russia, those have been elusive.

Kremlin control over Kherson, the first large city to be taken by Russian forces, was broken by Ukrainian counterattacks last month.

In another setback, Russian forces withdrew from fighting earlier this month from the areas around the capital of Kyiv.

Residents in the nearby village of Kozarovychi were seen Thursday surveilling the devastation left in their wake, including the remains of missiles and destroyed cars.

Ukrainian authorities said Thursday that Putin’s decision not to storm the Azovstal plant indicated that the attacking troops were in a weakened state.

“This situation means the following: They cannot physically capture Azovstal. They have understood this. They suffered huge losses there,” Oleksiy Arestovich, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Thursday.

With Post wires