The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bodies recovered from steel plant
Families open up about receiving their war dead as Russia holds over 2,500 more fighters captive.
Russia has KYIV, UKRAINE — begun turning over the bodies of Ukrainian fighters killed at the Azovstal steelworks, the fortress-like plant in the destroyed city of Mariupol where their lastditch stand became a symbol of resistance against Moscow’s invasion.
Dozens of fighters’ bodies recovered from the bombed-out mill’s now Russian-occupied ruins have been transferred to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, where DNA testing is underway to identify the remains, said Maksym Zhorin, a military commander and former leader of the Azov Regiment.
The Azov Regiment was among the Ukrainian units that defended the factory for nearly three months before surrendering.
It isn’t clear how many bodies might remain at the plant, which was relentlessly pounded by surrounding Russian forces from the ground, air and sea.
Meanwhile, Russian forces continued to fight for control of Sievierodonetsk, an eastern Ukrainian city that is key to Moscow’s goal of completing the capture of the industrial Donbas region.
And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow’s forces intend to capture the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, home to more than 700,000 people — a move that could severely weaken Ukraine’s standing and allow the Russian military to advance closer to the center of the country.
“In the Zaporizhzhia region ... there is the most threatening situation there,” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian fighters’ dogged defense of the steel mill frustrated the Kremlin’s objective of quickly capturing Mariupol and tied down Russian forces in the strategic port city. The last Azovstal holdouts finally relinquished the plant in May, marching out without weapons and carrying their wounded.
The survivors’ fate in Russian hands is shrouded in uncertainty. Zelenskyy said more than 2,500 fighters who defended the plant are being held prisoner by the Russians, and Ukraine is working on getting them released.
The recovery of the fighters’ remains from the Azovstal ruins has not been announced by the Ukrainian government, and Russian officials have not commented. But relatives of soldiers killed at the plant discussed the process with The Associated Press.
The Ukrainian government’s Ministry for Reintegration of Occupied Territories on Saturday announced the first officially confirmed swap of their military dead since the war began. It said the two sides exchanged 320 bodies in all, each getting back 160 sets of remains. It gave no details on where the bodies were recovered from.
The exchange took place Thursday on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The Avoz Regiment is a National Guard unit that grew out of a group called the Azov Battalion, formed in 2014 as one of many volunteer brigades that arose to fight Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. The Azov Battalion drew initial fighters from far-right circles.
Zhorin, the former Azov Regiment leader now co-commanding a Kyiv-based military unit, confirmed that remains recovered from Azovstal were among those exchanged in the swap.
The brother of an Azov fighter missing and feared dead in the steelworks told the AP that at least two trucks of bodies from Azovstal were transferred to a military hospital in Kyiv for identification. Viacheslav Drofa said the remains of his elder brother, Dmitry Lisen, did not appear to be among those recovered so far.
Bodies were recovered last week from the mill and some were severely burned, he said.
The mother of a soldier killed in a Russian airstrike on the plant said the Azov Regiment telephoned her and said that her son’s body might be among those that were transferred to Kyiv. The mother did not want her or her son to be identified by name, saying she feared that discussing the recovery might disrupt the process.
She tearfully referred to her son as a hero.
“I’m just waiting for the body of my son,” she said. “It’s important for me to bury him in our Ukrainian land.”