Azovstal regiment officers holding out
TOP-RANKING Ukrainian commanders had not yet surrendered from the labyrinth of bunkers and tunnels below the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, the leader of the Russian-backed separatist region of Donetsk said yesterday.
As the most devastating siege in Russia’s invasion moves towards a finale, nearly 1 000 Ukrainian fighters who barricaded themselves in the tunnels had so far given themselves up to Russian and pro-Russian forces since Monday.
Russia’s defence ministry said that in the previous day 694 Ukrainian fighters, including members of the Azov regiment, had surrendered, including 29 wounded. It was unclear if the top commanders would leave the plant or possibly even fight a last mortal battle with the Russian forces they regard as occupiers of their motherland.
“There are no commanders of the highest level (among those who surrendered) – they have not left,” said Denis Pushilin, head of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic, which was officially recognised by President Vladimir Putin just three days before the invasion of Ukraine.
“That is, so far,” said Pushilin, who along with Russian forces controls Mariupol. It was unclear what would happen to the fighters who were cast
by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as heroic resistance fighters but who Russian lawmakers said were “Nazi criminals” who should face the gravest punishment, even death.
Pushilin said the fate of the surrendered Ukrainian fighters would be decided by the courts.
“As for war criminals as well as those who are nationalists, their fate, if they laid down their arms, should be decided by the courts,” he said. “If the enemy has laid down arms, then his fate will be decided by the courts. If it is a Nazi criminal, then it’s a tribunal.”
Moscow says the Azov Regiment,
which began as an extreme-right nationalist paramilitary organisation, is a group of radically anti-Russian nationalist fighters and casts them as modern-day Nazi sympathisers.
The regiment, formed in 2014 as a militia to fight Russian-backed separatists, denies being fascist, racist or neo-Nazi, and Ukraine says it has been reformed away from its radical nationalist origins.
The Kremlin said the combatants would be treated in line with international norms. Ukraine has said there will be a prisoner of war exchange. |