Moscow announced the surrender of the latest Ukrainian fighters from the Azovstal factory. kyiv did not confirm the end of the evacuation.
by
This is the fall of a symbol. Moscow announced, Friday, May 20, at 86 e day of war, to have completed the conquest of Marioupol. The strategic port city on the Azov Sea has become the embodiment of both the martyrdom and the resistance of Ukraine. For the Russian forces, after the failure in the north of the country, assaults against kyiv, the capital, then against Kharkiv, the second city of the country, the total takeover of Marioupol was the first major military success of the conflict triggered the February 24.
The last defenders of the city, besieged for weeks in the Azovstal steelworks, all went, according to Moscow. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Choïgu announced the “complete liberation” of the factory to President Vladimir Putin. The surrender of Ukrainian soldiers from Marioupol, negotiated for three weeks between kyiv and Moscow, lasted five days. Begun on May 16 by the release of the steelworks of 53 injured, it ended on a total of 2,439 soldiers taken prisoner on Friday, according to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti. kyiv has, for his part, neither given a precise figure of the combatants who went or confirmed that the evacuation was finished.
Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Ukrainian National Guard Azov regiment, present in Azovstal alongside a unit of marine riflers, announced, a few hours before the Russian press release, that “command gave the order of Save the lives of the soldiers of our garrison and stop defending the city “, which was de facto already the case since the ceasefire of May 16. The officer said that after the evacuation of his injured comrades, his last concern was the fate of the bodies of the soldiers killed. “I hope that soon, he said, families and all of Ukraine will be able to bury their fighters with honors.”
involvement of foreign mediators
After having shown on Monday images of the evacuation of the wounded, carried on stretchers by their comrades in arms, the Russian army broadcast, Friday, a video of the excavation of Ukrainian fighters. The Russian soldiers seemed to pay particular attention to the tattoos of the prisoners: the soldiers of the Azov regiment, which was a paramilitary militia of the far right before being integrated into the armed forces, are indeed reputed to display on their bodies symbols of the Ukrainian ultra -nationalist movement. For Moscow, the soldiers of Azov remain “neonazis”, and their existence within the Ukrainian army is one of the arguments allowing Russia to affirm that one of the objectives of his war is “denazification “From Ukraine.
You have 64.97% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.