Russia announced that 959 Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol have surrendered since Monday., the strategic city in southeastern Ukraine that is practically under the control of Russian forces. The Ukrainian authorities assure that there are still soldiers in the tunnels of the steelworks and propose to organize an exchange of prisoners of war, although Moscow considers that at least some of them are not soldiers but neo-Nazi combatants. In the meantime, The first war crimes trial of a Russian soldier accused of killing a Ukrainian civilian began in kyiv.
The situation in Azovstal
“In the last 24 hours, 694 combatants, including 29 wounded, have become prisoners. Since May 16, 959 combatants, including 80 wounded, have surrendered“he specified russian defense ministry in a statement collected by the Sputnik news agency. The official report did not say whether Ukrainian military personnel remained inside the factory, but the governor of the breakaway province of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, assured that the highest-ranking officers still remained there.
The departure of the Ukrainian fighters from the factory had been admitted on Monday by the kyiv government, although without speaking of “surrender” but of “evacuation”. However, on Monday night, in his usual video message, President Volodimir Zelenski defended the decision of the military to surrender and assured that “Ukraine prefers its heroes alive”.
Doubts about the prisoner exchange
According to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense released this Wednesday, 51 of the soldiers who had been entrenched in the labyrinth of underground galleries of the huge Azovstal steelworks since April 22 and surrendered were hospitalized in Novoazovsk, a town under the control of the Russians and their separatist allies in the eastern Donetsk region.
The Russian ministry did not specify what fate the prisoners will have, but Denis Pushilin he told the DAN agency that “as for the war crimes, as well as the nationalists who laid down their arms, their future must be decided by a court.”
kyiv has remained silent since it announced its intention to exchange the military for Russian prisoners. For its part, Russia does not reveal whether it will agree to an exchange, but strong voices have emerged within the country in the Lower House, the Prosecutor’s Office and in pro-Russian Donbass that strongly reject this possibility.
This Wednesday the plenary session of the Duma began to study a draft resolution that would prohibit an exchange for “Nazi criminals”as Russia qualifies the nationalist fighters of the Azov battalion. The president of the Lower House, Viacheslav Volodin, explained in his Telegram account that it will not be an express procedure because the plenary session ordered the parliamentary committees to study the issue.
“Our country treats those who surrendered or were taken prisoner humanely. But as for the Nazis, our position here must remain the same: they are war criminals, and we must do everything to bring them to justice,” he said. Volodin. The Azov regiment, created in 2014 precisely in Mariupol, has been fully integrated since the end of that year into the National Guard of Ukraine.
First war crimes trial in Ukraine
While Vadim Shishimarinthe Russian non-commissioned officer who is tried in Ukraine in the first trial for war crimes since the invasion of Ukrainepleaded guilty in court in kyiv to having killed a Ukrainian civilian. The 21-year-old non-commissioned officer is accused of having killed a 62-year-old civilian on February 28 in northeastern Ukraine, and faces life imprisonment for war crime and premeditated murder.
The process is the first of several to be held in the short term and will be a test for the Ukrainian judicial system at a time when international institutions are launching their own investigations into alleged abuses committed by Russian troops in this country.
The Kremlin assured that it does not have any information about the case and accused kyiv of fabricating accusations of this type against its troops. “The possibilities of helping the accused are very limited in the absence of diplomatic representation”said the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskovfor whom these accusations of war crimes are “false or fabricated”.