Russian Media: 89 fighters from “Azovstal” are taken to Taganrog
Alyona Mazurenko - Thursday, 19 May 2022, 00:23
Russian media reported, citing sources, that 89 Ukrainian defenders, who had been rescued from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, had been relocated to Taganrog (Russia).
Source: Meduza [independent Russian news website based in Latvia - ed.] and the local Russian media outlet 161.ru, citing sources in the law enforcement agencies of the Rostov Oblast of the Russian Federation
Quote from media spokesman: "89 people have been brought to us, almost all of them combatants… From Taganrog they will be relocated further. Our part [Ukrainian military - ed.] will stay in the Oblast. They are now an important object [for exchange - ed.]."
Details: The Russian Ministry of Defence and Ukrainian agencies did not comment on this information.
The Head of the Rostov Public Monitoring Commission, Igor Omelchenko, suggested in a media comment that the Ukrainian military had been placed in the Taganrog detention centre No.2.
Another Russian source suggested that Ukrainian defenders would "face trial" in Russia.
Background:
On 17 May, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated that the Mariupol Garrison had completed their combat mission and that unit commanders had been ordered to save the lives of military personnel. On 16 May, 53 severely wounded servicemen were taken to a medical facility in Novoazovsk (in CADR - Certain Areas of the Donetsk Region) and another 211 defenders had been evacuated to the occupied Olenivka. Ukrainian authorities have been planning to return Ukrainian fighters to the territory under Ukraine’s control via an exchange procedure.
On 18 May, the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed that almost a thousand Ukrainian fighters had left the besieged Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
Russia has stated that Ukrainian fighters will be interrogated.
Denis Pushilin, the leader of the temporarily occupied region of Donetsk, has spoken in favour of trying the Ukrainian military from the Azovstal steelworks before an "international tribunal."
