Buses carrying Ukrainian forces surrendering weeks after spending time at the Azovstal steel plant are moving away under the escort of pro-Russian troops during the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in Mariupol, Ukraine, on May 17. ALEXANDER REMO
They spent many weeks underground in fortified tunnels defending a Ukrainian steel plant. Russian attacks clinging to the lives of declining supplies, with little water or food. Their relatives met with the pope and traveled throughout Europe, praying for the evacuation of their husbands and sons from the factory to the besieged city of Mariupol.
On Monday night, these requests were partially answered when more than 260 defenders of the Azovstal steel plant, one of the largest in Europe, surrendered and were taken to Russian-occupied territory. At least 52 were injured. The fighters are expected to return home by exchanging prisoners, Ukrainian authorities said.
For troops remaining in Azovstal – estimated at hundreds – the combat mission is over, Ukrainian officials said, signaling the end of one of the most persistent battles since the Russian invasion began on February 24th. Azovstal was a symbol of the country itself in its struggle against a much larger military force.
Now Ukraine says it will make every effort to ensure that everyone still returns to Azovstal. “We hope to save the lives of our boys,” President Vladimir Zelensky said early Tuesday. “Ukraine needs living Ukrainian heroes.
But these promises were contrasted with a more complex reality. Defenders of Azovstal, who survived crushing Russian attacks in wet tunnels cut off from the rest of Ukraine, backed the country’s wider military efforts. The attempt to crush their resistance attracted attention to thousands of Russian soldiers who stayed nearby instead of fighting elsewhere.
It is “extremely important” for Ukraine that those who are still in the severely damaged steel plant stay there, Dmitry Lubinets, a local political leader who chairs a parliamentary committee on human rights, deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories, said in an interview Tuesday.
Exhausted and dejected Ukrainian servicemen are sitting on a bus after being evacuated from the besieged Mariupol steelworks Azovstal. Alexey Alexandrov / Associated Press
Located near Mariupol, the city now occupied by Russian forces after a long siege that killed thousands, Azovstal remains an Ukrainian-controlled island in a region where Russian forces are rapidly moving toward Moscow.
The plant is “still Ukrainian,” Metinvest, the Ukrainian company that owns Azovstal, said in a statement Tuesday.
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Defenders of Azovstal “want to continue defending their land,” Mr Lubinets said, and there is no obvious option to leave. “All I can say is that these people have decided to keep fighting there and sacrificing their lives there.”
Many are members of the controversial Ukrainian Azov Regiment, which has far-right associations and has been fighting Russian-backed forces since 2014. The Kremlin calls it a neo-Nazi organization. Family members say their husbands are just patriots and fear torture, or worse, if their loved ones surrender to Russian forces.
An additional reason to doubt the soldiers’ ability to leave Azovstal safely came on Tuesday from the Russian parliament, which said it would consider a ban on exchanging prisoners for members of the Azov Regiment. Russia’s chief prosecutor’s office has asked the Supreme Court to recognize the regiment as a “terrorist organization,” state media reported.
Even those evacuees face uncertain prospects.
Russia and Ukraine have only reached an oral agreement on the 260 fighters sent by bus from Azovstal on Monday, Mr Lubinets said, and there is no final timetable for when an exchange of prisoners could take place.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered personal assurances that he will abide by international standards in the treatment of those taken from the steel plant, the Kremlin said.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that there had been no prisoner exchange yet, but declined to comment on the nature of the agreement with Russia.
The continuing uncertainty did not reassure the husbands and mothers, called “Azov’s wives”, who have become international defenders of those in the steel plant. On Tuesday, several gathered with dozens of supporters in front of the Chinese embassy in Kyiv, demanding Beijing’s help in evacuating their loved ones. One held a sign in Chinese letters urging Chinese people to “stop the genocide.” There were no signs of life at the embassy.
Lilia Stupina’s husband, Andriy, was in Azovstal, and only sporadically through text messages. The last one came a week ago, when he told her that he and his comrades were still strong. She does not believe that Andriy was injured and doubts that he was evacuated. But she doesn’t know where he is.
Lyudmila Dmitrovna’s son, Anatoly, is among the wounded fighters in Azovstal, his leg is lost. But he told her he would never give up. “Surrender for what?” she said. “To be executed?” That’s not the way it is. “
Those already taken from Azovstal have been pulled “out of hell”, said Katerina Vasilievna, organizer of the protest at the embassy. “But we don’t know where they have been evacuated now and whether it will be better for them.” Her husband was in Azovstal, but she, like the others, does not know his current location.
Deporting Russian-occupied territory is tantamount to “capture,” Ms. Vasilievna said. “We hope a third party will carry out the extraction. That is what we are pushing for and fighting for. “
The battle for Azovstal took place against the backdrop of Russian actions to quickly establish control over neighboring Mariupol, a port city strategically located between Russian territory and the Crimean peninsula annexed in 2014.
This includes urging Mariupol residents to submit simplified applications for Russian passports and swiftly introducing textbooks to schools that refer to the city as part of Russia’s Rostov region, said Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the city’s exiled mayor.
“They are trying to carry out direct annexation,” he said. Moscow wants to “integrate Mariupol into the Russian Federation.” Nevertheless, the success of the Ukrainian military in fighting Russian forces away from Kyiv, and then Kharkov, the country’s second largest city, backed optimism that Mariupol was not lost.
Such a belief is not just hope, said Mr Andryushchenko, who fled the city in March. “Confidence that this year we will return to Mariupol and he will be released.
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