It was the industrial pride of Mariupol. It has become the symbol of Ukrainian resistance. Some 1,100 hectares of concrete and metal placed on the edge of the Sea of Azov, in the heart of this martyr city of 430,000 inhabitants. Eight million tons of steel and cast iron came out of it each year. After three months of siege, in the spring of 2022, there remains only a field of ruins under which still run kilometers of galleries dug in the Soviet era as a shelter. This is where the city’s last defenders found refuge and gained hero status. Their relentless resistance under appalling conditions kept Ukraine and the world in suspense.
For weeks, the soldiers, which included members of the Azov regiment, constantly testified on social networks and answered interviews between two bombings. “I feel like I’m on some hellish reality show where we military are fighting for our lives, and the whole world is just watching”writes one of the Azovstal soldiers on Facebook. “Such scenarios exist in movies and TV shows. The only difference here is that it’s not a movie, and we’re not fictional characters. It’s real life. Pain, suffering, hunger, torment, tears, fear, death: it’s all real. »
Several of their wives roam the capitals, including Paris, to plead their cause. The Pope receives two of them at the Vatican. An online petition calling for “saving the fighters of Azovstal” collects over a million signatures in one week. “Help Mariupol, help Azovstal!” », launch the members of the Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra, winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, before the eyes of 200 million viewers, on May 14. Their call does not escape the men entrenched in the basements of the steelworks. One of them, in a bulletproof vest, helmet on his head, films himself the next day singing the song and then publishes the video on social networks.
On May 16, two weeks after the evacuation of the last civilians entrenched with them, the 264 soldiers who had sworn until then to fight to the last finally agreed to surrender after the conclusion of an agreement between Moscow and Kiev. “Ukraine needs living heroes. This is our principle. I think everyone will understand these words”says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Taken prisoner, they were to be brought before an international tribunal by the justice of the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk. In mid-September, 188 “Heroes of Azovstal and Mariupol”including 108 servicemen of the Azov regiment, were finally released as part of a prisoner exchange.