Fears for hundreds of Ukraine prisoners

KYIV: Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who held off Russian fighters at the besieged Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol have surrendered, Moscow said, as Kyiv called for an immediate prisoner swap.

The strategic port city fell to Russian forces last month, but a relentless Ukrainian military unit held out in the maze of tunnels under the plant, hailed as heroes and celebrated for stalling Moscow’s invasion.

On Tuesday, local time, 265 of them were taken into Russian captivity, including 51 who were badly wounded, the Russian defence ministry said.

The ministry, which published images showing soldiers on stretchers (below), said the injured were transported to a hospital in the eastern Donetsk region controlled by proKremlin rebels.

The defence ministry in Kyiv said it was hoping for an “exchange procedure … to repatriate these Ukrainian heroes as quickly as possible”.

The government would do “everything necessary” to rescue the undisclosed number of personnel still holed up in the Soviet-era bunkers, the ministry said.

The fate of the captured Ukrainians was unclear, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refusing to say whether they would be treated as criminals or prisoners of war.

President Vladimir Putin “guaranteed that they would be treated according to the relevant international laws”, Mr Peskov said.

Trust between the two sides is in short supply, with Kyiv saying negotiations on ending the three-month conflict were on hold, blaming Moscow for a refusal to compromise.

Russian forces stand accused of committing war crimes, including the summary killing of civilians in places like Bucha, a small town outside of Kyiv, where independent reporters witnessed bodies abandoned in the streets by retreating Russian invaders.