Dozens of Ukrainian soldiers have left the territory of Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks on Tuesday, Reuters reports, citing eyewitnesses.
According to the Reuters witness, some of the Ukrainian fighters did not appear to be wounded.
Шt was reported yesterday that 53 seriously wounded soldiers and 211 more servicemen were evacuated to the territory controlled by the self-proclaimed Donetsk “people’s republic” (“DPR”) after an agreement was reached between Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrainian Defence Ministry stated that Kyiv plans to hold a prisoner swap with Russia to return the Azovstal soldiers to Ukraine-controlled territory. The Ukrainian military leadership ordered the commanders of the units remaining at Azovstal to preserve the life of the soldiers.
The Russian Defence Ministry reported that the Azovstal fighters had “surrendered.” Soon after that, Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin offered to prohibit the exchange of prisoners from Ukraine’s Azov battalion for Russian prisoners of war, due to the fact that the Azov fighters are “Nazi criminals.” Another Russian lawmaker proposed to lift the death penalty for the fighters of Ukraine’s Azov battalion.
Meanwhile, the Russian Investigative Committee announced its plans to interrogate the Ukrainian servicemen transported to “DPR” territory. “Russian investigators will identify the nationalists and determine their involvement in the crimes committed against the civilian population,” the committee stated.
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry dismissed these statements as “political.” “This is a political statement, aimed at domestic propaganda and domestic political processes in the Russian Federation. For our part, we can say that the negotiation process continues, and the rescue operation continues as well,” Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar assured.
