Picked up by special forces
Report: Azovstal commanders taken to Russia
06/19/2022, 11:26 am
Hundreds of militants defended the Azovstal Steelworks in Mariupol for weeks before surrendering in May. Their commanders are then taken to the capital of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. According to a report, further interrogations are to take place in Russia.
According to a media report, two captured commanders of the Ukrainian units in the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have been taken to Russia for interrogation. The deputy commander of the Azov battalion, Svyatoslav Palamar, and the commander of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhiy Volynsky, reported the TASS news agency. She relies on an unspecified insider of the Russian judiciary. Russian special forces brought the two men from Donetsk to Russia for investigations. “Other officers from various Ukrainian units were also transported to Russia,” Tass quoted the insider as saying.
There was initially no reaction from Ukraine. The leadership in Kyiv announced earlier this month that its secret services were in contact with the captured fighters from the steel mill. Hundreds of militants were captured by Russian troops in May after the months-long siege of Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine. There is uncertainty about her fate.
The Azov Battalion is an all-volunteer infantry military unit originally formed in 2014 as a far-right volunteer militia to fight Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. This battalion and the unit from the 36th Marine Brigade played a key role in defending the steelworks in the port city of Mariupol in south-eastern Ukraine. Only after weeks of siege and constant shelling by the Russian army did the Ukrainian units surrender.
The Ukrainian government wants to achieve the surrender of all fighters through a prisoner exchange with Russia. In early June, Russian authorities announced that more than 1,000 Azovstal fighters had been taken to unknown locations in Russia for investigation purposes. You face the death penalty.