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Ukraine ends bloody battle for Mariupol; Azovstal fighters evacuated
Mariupol’s Azovstal Iron and Steel Works and its network of underground tunnels served as a shelter and final foothold for hundreds of Ukrainian fighters, including many from the controversial far-right Azov Regiment, as well as trapped civilians.
They were holed up in the facility for weeks under an intense Russian assault, before all women, children and elderly people were evacuated under an agreement earlier this month. Those who made it to safety described a brutal siege in cold and fetid bunkers, where they lived without sunlight as food and water supplies dwindled.
The bombardment of the Azovstal plant appears to have persisted in recent days. Videos posted to Telegram by local officials over the weekend showed white, brightly burning munitions raining down on the plant. The type of munitions could not be independently verified, but a British military expert told Reuters it looked like an attack with phosphorus or incendiary weapons.
Under Monday’s agreement, dozens of buses were seen leaving the plant in an evacuation coordinated with the help of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Anna Malyar, said 53 seriously wounded soldiers were taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk, a nearby town controlled by Russian-backed separatists. An additional 211 were transported to another Russian-aligned village, Olenivka, she said. Ukrainian officials said they are seeking to broker a prisoner swap to secure their release.
“After their condition stabilizes, we will exchange them for Russian prisoners of war,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Tuesday.
While it was unclear how many were still inside Azovstal, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said negotiations on extracting the remaining troops were very difficult but ongoing. “There is definitely hope,” he said in a televised interview. Ukrainian authorities said last week that nearly 1,000 holdout fighters were in the plant.
Moscow said the evacuation from the Mariupol facility followed an order from the Ukrainian military command for its troops to surrender.
The Kremlin said Tuesday that the Ukrainian fighters who emerged would be treated in line with international law and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in guaranteeing this. Yet the Russian State Duma, or lower house of parliament, wrote on Telegram that its speaker said Ukrainian nationalist “criminals” should not be exchanged and that a lawmaker had proposed banning a swap.
Losing Mariupol is a significant setback for Kyiv. It allows Russia to establish a vital land bridge between Crimea, the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and Russian-controlled territories in Ukraine’s east.
The battle for Mariupol, one of the war’s bloodiest, has drawn global attention. Russia laid waste to much of the southeastern city on the Sea of Azov, which had a fast-growing population of about 450,000 before the invasion. The offensive cut off water and electricity and reduced much of Mariupol to rubble.
Ukraine’s military leaders hailed the fighters in the city for keeping Russian forces at bay long enough to buy crucial time for troops fighting elsewhere, and Podolyak credited them with changing “the course of the war.” Russia has yet to make significant gains in eastern Ukraine, where it has concentrated its resources for weeks.
“We got the critically needed time to build reserves, regroup forces and get help from partners,” Ukraine’s military command said in a Monday update.
“Mariupol defenders are heroes of our time,” it said. “They are forever in history.”
Annabelle Chapman, Adam Taylor, Niha Masih and Louisa Loveluck contributed to this report.