(Reuters) – Ukrainian intelligence services are in contact with prisoners of war who defended the Azovstal Mariupol metallurgical complex and Kyiv is doing everything to secure their release, Ukraine’s interior ministry said.
Uncertainty reigns over the fate of hundreds of Azovstal fighters detained since mid-May by the Russians after Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky asked them to lay down their arms after almost three months of siege.
“It is through them (the intelligence services, editor’s note) that we know their conditions of detention, their diet and the possibility of their release,” Denis Monastirsky told Ukrainian television on Friday evening.
“We all know that they will all be here, Kyiv, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that it is,” the interior minister added.
Kyiv hopes to secure the release of Azovstal fighters as part of a prisoner exchange. However, Russian parliamentarians want some of these soldiers to be brought to justice.
The Kremlin has assured that fighters who have surrendered will be treated in accordance with international law.
(Report Lidia Kelly Melbourne and Max Hunder Kyiv, French version Matthieu Protard)