Moscow has quantified in 1,730 The number of Ukrainian fighters who have surrendered in Mariupol in three days, including 771 in the last 24 hours. Uncertainty hovers, however, about where and how the wounded soldiers are. Moscow claims that more than 900 Ukrainian fighters from the Mariupol steel plant have been taken to an ancient penal colonyin a part of Donetsk controlled by Russia, while Ukraine has not commented on his whereabouts.
Among the combatants, there are 80 wounded who were taken to a hospital in Russian-controlled territory, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, which released a video of soldiers leaving the metallurgical plant, some of them with crutches, and being searched and their registered backpacks. It is unknown how many Ukrainian soldiers would remain inside the Azovstal facility.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reported that it is preparing a registry of the hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war who defended the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol (southeast), in order to follow up on their arrest and help them contact their families. This registration is carried out through a form in which the soldiers write down their name, date of birth and details of a close relative, the Red Cross explained in a statement.
The “ICRC must have immediate access to all prisoners of war wherever they are, in accordance with the mandate granted by the States through the Geneva Conventions of 1949”, recalled the centennial organization that has also insisted on its right to interview such prisoners without witnesses or to visit them without restrictions on duration or frequency.
prisoner exchange
Since May 16, 1,730 Azovstal defenders, all from the Azov Battalion and including 80 wounded, have “surrendered” and handed themselves over to Russian forces, according to Moscow. The Ukrainian government, which prefers to refer to these defenders as “evacuees”, wants exchange them for russian prisonersbut Moscow has not yet commented publicly on this possibility, which it finds endurance in it russian parliament and the pro-Russian separatists from Donbas. From both sides it is demanded to judge and even impose the death penalty to the “war criminals”, a term with which some deputies describe the members of the Azov Battalion.
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The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, stated that the last defenders of Mariupol – regular soldiers and members of the National Guard, on which the Azov Battalion depends – are national heroes. Moscow, on the other hand, accuses the battalion of radical anti-Russian nationalism and neo-Nazism and of acting against Russian-speakers in Ukraine.
The unit, born in 2014 as a militia to fight pro-Russian separatists, denies being fascist, racist or neo-Nazi, and the Ukrainian government says it has been reformed and purged of its radical origins to be integrated into the armed forces.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.