Concerns over the fate of "Heroes of Ukraine"
Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who took refuge in the bunkers of the Azovestel steel plant in Mariupol were evacuated to Russian-controlled territory.
Relatives are worried about what will happen to them under Russian hands - and a prisoner exchange agreement is not in sight
News agencies
18/05/2022
Wednesday, 18 May 2022, 12:15 Updated: 12:40
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A sigh of relief was heard across Ukraine as news broke that soldiers trapped in bunkers at the Uzbestel steel plant in the southern city of Mariupol had been evacuated - even if not back to their families but to the Russians.
The choice the soldiers faced was impossible - if they had stayed in the factory, they would have died - whether from starvation or from untreated injuries - after their release, they face cruel uncertainty about their fate.
The world and worried relatives are now wondering what will happen to the hundreds of soldiers who refused to surrender for weeks of incessant bombing, and are now in the hands of one of the cruelest armies in the world.
Details of negotiations on a prisoner-of-war exchange agreement between Ukraine and Russia have not yet been released.
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Soldiers evacuated from Azobestel factory, Mariupol, May 17, 2022 (Photo: AP)
Trapped in a bunker with the bitch
Trapped in a factory
Leaving the factory
Leaving the factory
According to Ukrainian authorities, the fighters may be replaced by Russian prisoners.
The Russians, on the other hand, did not confirm the report.
Hours after the first group left the factory, Russian officials said some would be treated as war criminals, and Russian politicians strongly opposed the proposal for a prisoner exchange, saying new laws would prevent legislation on prisoner exchanges, which Russia calls "terrorists."
According to them, the fact that most of the fighters belong to the Moss Regiment, founded by a militia of far-right volunteers in Ukraine in 2014.
Members of the battalion deny being neo-Nazis, and Ukraine claims the battalion has changed and integrated into the country’s national guard.
Relatives of soldiers evacuated from Azobestel factory, Mariupol, May 17, 2022 (Photo: AP)
Mariupol, a port city on the shores of a mossy sea, has been one of the fiercest battlefields since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Russia bombed hospitals, a maternity ward and a theater, where hundreds of civilians seeking refuge from the Russians were sheltered.
The city became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and while most of the city fell to the Russians, Ukrainian soldiers continued to defend the factory, which also housed about a thousand civilians.
Ukrainian officers described the harsh conditions inside the plant, as food and water reservoirs began to run out, and hundreds of wounded were forced to survive without proper medical care.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zalansky said "tens of thousands" had died in Mariupol, and the military governor said about 20,000 had been killed.
He said 90% of the city's infrastructure had been destroyed and 40% could not be rehabilitated.
Images of the destruction from the city became a symbol of the Kremlin's uncontrolled use of force, leading to comparisons to other cities destroyed in the wars, such as Aleppo in Syria and Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
Horror stories
Out of about 450,000 residents, a third have left Mariupol, said City Governor Vadim Boychenko.
Only a hundred thousand remained.
The fleeing residents tell of the atrocities they experienced.
Some said they had been instructed by the Russian military to evacuate to Russia through "filtering camps," which were set up to test the political views of Ukrainian citizens before they were deported to Russia.
The use of the camps immediately evoked memories of the forced displacement of millions of people to isolated and remote areas of the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin.
The news agency ukrinform reported that the Russian army is even operating mobile crematoria in Mariupol to destroy evidence of the war crimes it has committed in the city.
Eyewitnesses also reported that the Russians use collaborators, such as separatists from Donetsk and locals who hold positions in special purge divisions.
The collaborators collect and burn the bodies of residents who were tortured and killed as a result of the Russian invasion.
The Kremlin has denied these reports.
Soldiers evacuated from Azobestel factory, Mariupol, May 17, 2022 (Photo: AP)
Soldiers evacuated from Azobestel factory, Mariupol, 17 December 2022 (Photo: AP)
Yesterday (Tuesday) seven buses full of Ukrainian soldiers evacuated from the factory arrived at a former penal colony in the Russian-controlled city of Olnivka in Donetsk, according to a Reuters report.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that 265 Ukrainian fighters had surrendered at the plant, including 51 seriously wounded who had been transferred to Russian-controlled Novozovsk hospitals in the east of the country.
The soldiers' relatives are very worried.
Sandra Krotevich, the sister of the commander of the Moss Regiment, Budan Krotevich, told the BBC that she contacted her brother yesterday morning, when he was still in the factory grounds, but has not heard from him since.
According to her, the fighters in the factory realized that Mariupol had lost its strategic importance and wanted to wait for an agreement that would allow them to bury the dead and leave the factory for territory controlled by Ukraine or a third country.
"I would have preferred the evacuation to have taken place only after an agreement," Krotevich said.
In light of the harsh statements made by senior Russian officials and the Russian media, which does not support the return of troops to Ukrainian hands, Krotevich called on the international community to find a way to ensure that troops are returned to Ukraine.
"Their lives are in the hands of international leaders. If they find a way to save them, all Ukrainian citizens will be grateful. The soldiers are the heroes of the whole country," she said.
Anna, whose brother was inside the factory, told CNN that "many concerns about the fighters, the treatment they will receive and their survival until a prisoner exchange agreement is reached."
Oksana, the wife of one of the fighters, said "We are very concerned that the soldiers have been evacuated to Russian-controlled territory. We are very, very, very worried about what will happen to them."
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