Kyiv withholds comment: Russians drive away Azov fighters in buses

Kyiv withholds comment
Russians drive away Azov fighters in buses

For some of the injured fighters in the Mariupol steelworks, the encirclement is probably over: an eyewitness reports of buses taking soldiers from the Azov regiment to a Russian-controlled city. However, it is not certain whether they are safe there.

In Mariupol, after weeks of siege, Ukrainian soldiers are being transported away from the Azovstal steelworks, which is surrounded by Russian units. A Reuters eyewitness saw about a dozen buses leave the huge factory premises. At first it was not possible to determine how many Ukrainian soldiers were on the buses. It was also unclear whether there were any wounded on the buses.

According to Ukrainian information, around 40 injured soldiers are said to have been in the steelworks, and a total of around 600 soldiers are said to have holed up there. The steelworks has become a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance against the Russian occupiers.

A commander of the troops trapped in the steel mill explained in a video that he was carrying out orders from the high command to save the lives of the soldiers. But he left open what exactly was meant. He did not mention a possible surrender. The Ministry of Defense in Moscow had previously announced that an agreement had been reached on the evacuation of the wounded. They would be taken to Novoazovsk for medical treatment. The city is controlled by Russians.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar declined to comment on television so as not to jeopardize the process, she said. “As the process is ongoing, we cannot say what is currently happening.”

Wives report torture of prisoners

Meanwhile, four young women of the trapped fighters travel through Europe and ask for international help to free them. “We don’t know which country can really help us, so we’re turning to everyone,” Olha Andrianovna said during the women’s visit to Paris on Sunday. Andrianovna and three other wives of Ukrainian soldiers left Kyiv on April 23 and have so far made stops in Poland, Germany and the Vatican, where Pope Francis received them for a brief audience.

The situation in the steel mill is so critical that “every day counts as much as six months or a year,” said Andrianovna. There is no more food in the steelworks, and water is also scarce. The fighters would have to share a few cups and could only “take a sip every six to eight hours”. Since the bombing of a military hospital in the industrial complex, the soldiers have had to be “operated and amputated without anesthetic”.

Sviatoslav Palamar, a commander of Ukraine’s Azov regiment, recently said nearly 600 of the 1,000 soldiers trapped were injured. A capitulation is out of the question for the men, their wives reported. Captured members of the Ukrainian Azov regiment were cruelly tortured, Andrianovna said. “Then the Russians sent the photos of the corpses of the tortured to their mothers.”

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