“Unfortunately, a large number of our pilots died in the process,” the president told Ukrainian television. “They were heroes who knew that it was almost impossible to transport medicine, food and water to Azovstal and return with the bodies of the dead and the wounded,” he added in an interview, from which the Ukrainian server quoted the truth.
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He said that it was not possible to officially comment on the attempts to supply the occupied city and the Azovstal steel complex, which were held by Ukrainian fighters until the last possible moment. “No air corridors led to Azovstal due to strong Russian air defense,” the Ukrainian president said.
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Zelensky also noted that Azovstal was defended not only by the Ukrainian National Guards, including the Azov Regiment, but also by about 400 border guards, paratroopers, police officers, military medics and civilians. Russian propaganda portrays members of the Azov Regiment as neo-Nazis. But according to Ukrainian media, the Ukrainian public perceives Mariupol defenders as heroes.
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Herashchenko: The defense of Azovstal will fit in the textbooks
Adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior Anton Herashchenko said that he would one day learn about the defense of Azovstal in military schools. According to Herashchenko, the people inside had no drinking water, virtually no medical supplies and ate only once a day. “Do you know what it is like to amputate a limb without anesthetics?” “What is seen in Hollywood horror movies is nothing compared to what the defenders of Azovstal saw and suffered,” Herashchenko told Ukrainian television.
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Russian buses take the captured Ukrainian Azovstal defender from Mariupol.
Photo: Alexander Ermochenko, Reuters
Russian troops have besieged the strategically located port city on the Sea of Azov since March 1. After the conquest of most of Mariupol, the large area of Azovstal steelworks, located directly in the city, remained the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance, led by Azov regiment soldiers, along with Marines and members of other units.
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The Ukrainian command gave the defenders of the Azovstal metallurgical complex the order to stop the resistance against Russian attacks in order to preserve the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, said the commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment Denis Prokopenko in a video statement on Friday afternoon. He also said that the badly wounded soldiers had been evacuated from the area and that their subsequent exchange for Russian prisoners was planned.
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The Ukrainian army’s general staff said on Tuesday night that the soldiers in Mariupol had “completed their mission” and that the High Military Command had ordered the commanders of the Azovstal units to protect the lives of the personnel.
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Russians: We had to protect Commander Azov
The Russian Ministry of Defense claims that the underground spaces under the steelworks are also in Russian hands. According to Interfax, ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that the commander of the Azov regiment had been taken from the steelworks in a special armored car to protect him “from the hatred of the city’s inhabitants, who wanted to lynch him for numerous atrocities.”
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According to a spokesman for Konashenko, 2,439 Ukrainian soldiers, surrounded by steel mills, surrendered as of May 16. “Today, the last group of 531 soldiers surrendered,” he said.
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Russia’s Defense Ministry has released a video that allegedly captures the surrender of Azovstal defenders. The video shows a crowd of unarmed men approaching members of the Russian army in front of the steel plant and reporting their names. The Russians then search them carefully and apparently also invite them to show their tattoos.
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