Russia says that nearly a thousand fighters from the Azovstal steel mill, the last stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in the strategic city of Mariupol, have already surrendered since Monday. In the last 24 hours, 694 soldiers, including some women, have left the metallurgical plant, including 29 wounded, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman General Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday.
They join the first 265 soldiers, 51 of whom were wounded, who surrendered on Monday night. In total, 959 combatants, a number that is quite close to the estimates given by the Ukrainian authorities, who numbered about 1,000 a week ago, including 600 wounded, the soldiers who survived in very precarious conditions under the steel mill. However, the Ukrainian government has not confirmed this second evacuation operation and a pro-Russian separatist leader Denis Pushilin pointed out that Azovstal’s top military commandos are still at the plant, according to the DAN news agency.
The two sides are trying to control the narrative and take advantage of the departure of the last fighters from Mariupol for their propaganda about one of the most important battles that have been fought since the invasion began on February 24. Ukraine says that “they have fulfilled their mission” of resisting the brutal siege of the Russian Army in order to prevent the advance of the enemy in other parts of the country; Russia, on the other hand, sells it as a surrender.
However, the fate of these fighters is now one of the biggest concerns of the Ukrainian government and their families, many of whom are still in Zaporizhia where they were evacuated a few weeks ago. At the moment it is known that, as regards the first to leave, the wounded were taken to the hospital in Novoazovsk, a town controlled by Russia in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic; and the others to a former penal colony also in Russian-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine. A Ukrainian military high command hopes to exchange them for Russian prisoners of war.
But the Russian Duma plans to vote against him today and block any attempts that go in this direction. The president of the Russian parliament proposed to try the Azov regiment, which, due to its origins, embodies for Russia the denunciations of the existence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine and justifies the “denazification” operation that Vladimir Putin coined to justify its invasion, for being “criminals”. Nazis” and “war criminals”. From the Russian Supreme Court, its attorney general, asked to declare the battalion a “terrorist organization”. The pro-Russian leader Pushlin pointed in the same direction and indicated that a court will decide the future of the combatants.
The Government of Ukraine was not throwing in the towel and the Deputy Minister of Defense, Hanna Maliar, insisted yesterday that the negotiations for the release of the combatants were ongoing, as were the plans to rescue the combatants who were still inside the plant. steel. The president of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, assured that “the most influential international mediators are involved” in the evacuation of the soldiers, whom the Ukrainian Supreme Military Command called “heroes of our time” after considering “their mission accomplished”, in other words, give them permission to lay down their arms in order to save their lives.
In the video published by the Russian Ministry of Defense, the members of this second operation are seen. The images show how the soldiers who left the metallurgical plant, including some women, leave the Azovstal territory with their mats and suitcases in a row and stand in a single line to be searched by Russian soldiers. Some rely on crutches and even sticks to walk, others are blindfolded and others are taken on a stretcher to an ambulance.
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