Concern mounts over the fate of 2,500 POWs from Mariupol siege
CONCERN is mounting over Ukrainian fighters who became Moscow’s prisoners at the end of a brutal three-month siege in Mariupol – as a Russianbacked separatist leader vowed they would face tribunals.
Russia has claimed full control of the Azovstal steel plant, which for weeks was the last hold-out in Mariupol and a symbol of Ukrainian tenacity in the strategic port city, now in ruins with more than 20,000 residents feared dead.
Its seizure delivers Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly wanted victory in the war he began in February.
As the West rallies behind Ukraine, Polish President Andrzej Duda arrived in Ukraine on an unannounced visit and was due to address the country’s parliament yesterday, his office said.
Poland, which has welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees since the start of the war, is a strong supporter of Ukraine’s desire to join the European Union.
With Russia blocking Ukraine’s sea ports, Poland has become a major gateway for western humanitarian aid and weapons going into Ukraine and has been helping Ukraine get its grain and other agricultural products to world markets.
The Russian defence ministry released video footage of Ukrainian soldiers being detained after announcing that its forces had removed the last hold-outs from the steel plant’s miles of underground tunnels.
Family members of the fighters, who came from a variety of military and law enforcement units, have pleaded for them to be given rights as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Ukraine. Deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Saturday that Ukraine “will fight for the return” of every one of them.
Denis Pushilin, the pro-Kremlin head of an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, claimed that 2,439 people were in custody.
He said on Russian state TV that the figure includes some foreign nationals, though he did not provide further details.
“I believe that justice must be restored. There is a request for this from ordinary people, society, and, probably, the sane part of the world community,” Russian state news agency Tass quoted Mr Pushilin as saying.
Convoys of buses, guarded by Russian armoured vehicles, left the plant on Friday.
At least some Ukrainians were taken to a former penal colony, while Russian authorities said others were in hospital.
Among the plant’s defenders were members of the Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins have been seized on by the Kremlin as part of an effort to cast its invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government has not commented on Russia’s claim of capturing Azovstal, which for weeks remained Mariupol’s last hold-out of Ukrainian resistance.
Ukraine’s military had told the fighters that their mission was complete and they could come out. It described their extraction as an evacuation, not a mass surrender.
The end of the battle for Mariupol would help Mr Putin offset some stinging setbacks, including the failure of Russian troops to take over Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, the sinking of the Russian Navy’s flagship in the Black Sea and the continued resistance that has stalled an offensive in eastern Ukraine.
It also furthers Russia’s quest to essentially create a land bridge from Russia stretching through the Donbas region to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The impact on the broader war remained unclear.
Many Russian troops already had been redeployed from Mariupol to elsewhere in the conflict.
Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported on Saturday that Russia destroyed a Ukrainian special-operations base in the Black Sea region of Odesa as well as a significant cache of westernsupplied weapons in northern Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region. There was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.
The Ukrainian military reported heavy fighting in much of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
“The situation in Donbas is extremely difficult,” said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly video address to the nation. “As in previous days, the Russian army is trying to attack Sloviansk and Sievierodonetsk.”
He said Ukrainian forces are holding off the offensive “every day.”
Sievierodonetsk is the main city under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region, which together with the Donetsk region makes up the Donbas. Governor Serhii Haidai said the only functioning hospital in the city has just three doctors and supplies for 10 days.
Yesterday, the British Ministry of Defence said Russia’s only operational company of BMP-T Terminator tank support vehicles, which are designed to protect main battle tanks, “has likely been deployed to the Sievierodonetsk axis of the Donbas offensive”.
It said, however, with a maximum of 10 of the vehicles deployed, “they are unlikely to have a significant impact on the campaign”.
Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region, is critical to Russia’s objective of capturing all of eastern Ukraine and saw fierce fighting last month after Moscow’s troops backed off from Kyiv. Russian shelling on Saturday killed seven civilians and injured 10 more elsewhere in the region, the governor said.
Mr Zelenskyy emphasised that the Donbas remains part of Ukraine and his forces are fighting to liberate it.
Speaking at a joint media conference with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, Mr Zelenskyy pressed western countries for multiple-launch rocket systems, which he said “just stand still” in other countries yet are key to Ukraine’s success.
US President Joe Biden signed off on Saturday on a fresh, $40bn (£32bn) infusion of aid for Ukraine, with half for military assistance.
Portugal pledged up to €250m (£211m), as well as continued shipments of military equipment.
Mr Zelenskyy reiterated his intention to apply for European Union membership and accused Russia of blockading agricultural exports from Ukraine, which is known as the “breadbasket of Europe”.