Nfter weeks of blockade, around 260 Ukrainian soldiers have left the Azov steelworks in Mariupol. Among them were 53 seriously injured, as the Ukrainian general staff announced on Tuesday night. Almost at the same time as the evacuation, there was a new Russian air raid on the city of Lviv in western Ukraine.
53 seriously wounded soldiers were taken to a hospital in the Russian-controlled city of Novoazovsk, about 32 kilometers to the east, Deputy Defense Minister Anna Maljar said in a video published on the Internet on Monday. Another 211 people were taken to the town of Olenivka, in the Russian separatist-controlled Donetsk region. A possible exchange of prisoners with Russia is planned for all evacuees. Maljar emphasized that fighting Azovstal free was not possible.
The Russian military said on duty it had captured 265 Ukrainian militants from the besieged Mariupol Steel Plant since Monday. “In the past 24 hours, 265 militants, including 51 seriously injured, laid down their arms and took themselves into captivity,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Tuesday. the figures thus differ slightly from those of the Ukrainian side. A planned prisoner exchange has not yet been officially confirmed by the Russian side. The Russian Defense Ministry had previously only spoken of a ceasefire for the evacuation.
Zelenskyj: “Ukraine needs its heroes alive”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his video address that Ukraine needs its heroes alive. The International Red Cross and the United Nations were also involved in the evacuation of the soldiers.
The port city of Mariupol was surrounded shortly after the Russian invasion in February. The strategically important city was exposed to heavy bombing and rocket attacks. Experts and Ukrainian authorities assume thousands of civilian deaths. Russian troops gradually took control after the siege. The city’s last Ukrainian defenders, however, holed up in the huge steelworks with several underground floors.
The Russian troops did not risk an attempt at storming, but sealed off all entrances. “Block this industrial zone so that not even a fly comes out,” Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin instructed his military in front of the camera. The area was repeatedly bombed. Hundreds of civilians who also fled to the steelworks from advancing Russian troops had already been evacuated from the factory premises in the past few days.
The withdrawal of the soldiers, who had hardly any provisions and water, was negotiated for a long time. In Ukraine, there were also accusations against the government in Kyiv that it had abandoned the last defenders of Mariupol.
Another rocket attack near Lemberg
The area around the city of Lemberg (Lviv) in western Ukraine was again the target of an air raid. The attack was aimed at a military facility in the Yavoriv district on the border with Poland, local military chief Maxim Kositsky wrote on Telegram. Mayor Andriy Sadowy emphasized that there was no information about rocket hits in the city and thanked the air defense. In mid-March, a Russian airstrike hit the military training area in Jaworiv, killing 35 people according to Ukrainian sources. In Yavoriv, Ukrainian soldiers had trained with Western instructors in recent years.