Ukrainian soldiers in Azovstal receive orders to “cease fighting”

According to the radio RTon May 17, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed on social networks that the soldiers are hiding at the steel plant. Azovstal in the city of Mariupol received new orders.

A statement from the agency said the Mariupol garrison had “completed its assigned combat duty” and that commanders of the units stationed at the steel mill had to save the soldiers’ lives.

While the Russian media called this “surrender”, according to RT, the Ukrainian side avoided using this word.

Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol – Photo: REUTERS

According to the news agency AP, More than 260 soldiers, some of them seriously injured, were evacuated and sent to Russian-controlled areas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the evacuation to separatist-controlled territory to save the lives of fighters had “suffered for weeks”.

“I want to emphasize that Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive. That is our principle” – AP and RT quoting President Zelensky.

Associated Reuters Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar specifically informed that a total of 53 wounded soldiers from the Azovstal steel plant were taken to a hospital in the town of Novoazovsk, 32 kilometers to the east, now controlled by Russia. .

An injured soldier from the Azovstal steel plant is stretched onto a bus leaving Mariupol on the evening of May 16 – Photo: REUTERS

Another 211 were taken to the town of Olenivka, also in an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Reporter Reuters recorded five buses carrying soldiers from Azovstal to Novoazovsk late on May 16, some of the wounded were moved on stretchers to get off the bus.

Deputy Minister Anna Malyar also said that the soldiers who had just surrendered would return home by exchanging prisoners with Russian soldiers previously captured by the Kiev authorities, according to the report. RT.

According to Channel New Asia, Ukraine’s military said rescue efforts were still underway but did not specify how many soldiers were still trapped. The Ukrainian military said it held out in Azovstal for 82 days.

Meanwhile, Russian sources estimate 2,200 people are trapped inside the underground tunnel system under Azovstal. The underground system of this huge plant can withstand even nuclear attacks.