Status: 05/17/2022 10:10 p.m
The first Ukrainian soldiers were brought out of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol – but now what? While Ukraine is pushing for a prisoner exchange, Russia appears to want to investigate possible crimes committed by the armed forces.
After weeks of perseverance, more than 260 Ukrainian soldiers were able to leave the Azovstal plant in the port city of Mariupol – and are now in Russian captivity. Ukraine is banking on an exchange for Russian soldiers, but this has apparently fallen on deaf ears in Moscow.
According to Ukraine, at least 264 of its own fighters have now been taken out of the industrial complex. About 50 seriously injured are said to be among them. Also on Tuesday, Ukrainian soldiers were taken away from the site in seven buses, the Reuters news agency reported.
Many soldiers apparently taken to prison camps
The soldiers had stayed in the steelworks and the associated, extensive bunker system for weeks. They repeatedly asked for help in video messages and drew attention to the deteriorating supply situation.
First, civilians who had also been on the premises of the steel mill were brought to safety. Now the first Ukrainian soldiers followed. The majority of the fighters are said to have been taken to the village of Olenivka near Donetsk. The region is controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
There is a prison camp there, which Ukrainian officials have also referred to as a concentration camp in the past ARD correspondent Rebecca Barth reported. The Russian media also said that the injured soldiers would be taken to the district hospital in Novoazovsk and given medical care.
conflicting parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body.
Ukrainian vs. Russian soldiers?
The Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maljar hopes to be able to agree with Russia on a prisoner exchange: the more than 260 fighters for Russian soldiers.
Thanks to the use of its own soldiers, important time was gained to form reserves, regroup forces and receive help from partners. “The defenders of Mariupol fully performed all the tasks assigned by the commanders. Unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity to solve the Azovstal blockade militarily,” said Malyar.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also stressed in a video message that Ukraine needs “its heroes” alive. According to him, it was the result of mutual negotiations that the first fighters could now leave the Azovstal plant.
However, hundreds of fighters are said to be still on the site. The Ukrainian general staff leaves the exact figure open. However, he warned that Russian troops would continue to blockade the steelworks.
Soldiers should be interrogated
The future fate of the Ukrainian soldiers is unclear. A Russian investigative committee has now announced that it wants to interrogate the armed forces as part of an investigation into alleged “crimes committed by the Ukrainian regime against the civilian population” in the country’s industrial east. Investigators would identify “the nationalists” and check whether they had been involved in crimes against civilians.
“Bringing War Criminals to Justice”
In a plenary session, however, the head of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, clearly spoke out against a “general exchange of prisoners”. He described the Ukrainian fighters as “Nazi criminals” – said the Duma chief that they were not subject to exchange. “These are war criminals and we must do everything we can to bring them to justice.”
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that Russia is always ready to “solve humanitarian problems” – just as it did “when, thanks to our military and its local initiatives, hundreds of wounded were brought out of Azovstal”. These are precisely the principles that underlie the actions of the Russian army.