KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian fighters extracted from the last bastion of resistance in Mariupol were taken to a former penal colony in enemy-controlled territory, and a top military official hoped they could be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war. But a Moscow lawmaker said they should be brought to “justice”, according to AP.
The Russian parliament planned to take up a resolution on Wednesday to prevent the exchange of Azov Regiment fighters, who held out for months inside the Azovstal steelworks plant while Mariupol was under siege, according to Russian news agencies.
Nearly 1,000 Ukrainian troops holed up at Azovstal have handed themselves over this week, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. More than 260 left Monday, and nearly 700 left since then.
Many are wounded, and it’s not clear how many fighters still remain at the sprawling steel mill.
Earlier, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said negotiations for the fighters’ release were ongoing, as were plans to take out fighters who are still inside the sprawling steel mill. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “the most influential international mediators are involved” in the plans. Officials have not said how many remain inside.
The troops in the waterside steel plant have been the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, which has been effectively in Russian hands for some time now.
In an unrelated development that could take the sheen off of any Russian declaration of victory in Mariupol, Sweden and Finland both officially applied to join NATO on Wednesday, a move driven by security concerns over the Russian attack
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on February 24 in what he said was an effort to check NATO’s expansion but has seen that strategy backfire by driving the public in Sweden and Finland, traditionally nonaligned nations, toward the Western alliance.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he welcomed the applications, which now have to be weighed by 30 member countries.
Mariupol was targeted by Russia in the early days of the invasion. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in its daily intelligence report on Wednesday that Ukraine had bitterly contested the strategic port city, costing Russia time and troops as it sought to capture a land corridor from its home territory to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
“Despite Russian forces having encircled Mariupol for over 10 weeks, staunch Ukrainian resistance delayed Russia’s ability to gain full control of the city,” the ministry said. “This frustrated its early attempts to capture a key city and inflicted costly personnel losses amongst Russian forces.”
More than 260 Ukrainian fighters — some of them seriously wounded and taken out on stretchers — left the ruins of the Azovstal plant on Monday and turned themselves over to the Russian side in a deal negotiated by the warring parties. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday that 694 Ukrainian soldiers handed themselves over in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 959.
