Ukrainian intelligence has contact with PoWs from Azov Regiment – Minister of Internal Affairs
KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO – FRIDAY, 3 JUNE 2022, 23:34
Denys Monastyrskyi, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, said that Ukrainian intelligence officers have contact with the Azov Regiment soldiers who were defending Mariupol and who are now held as Russia’s prisoners of war.
Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs on Telegram, quoting Monastyrskyi during the national 24/7 newscast
Quote: "Today our intelligence officers from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence [of Ukraine - ed.] are in contact with the guys [the imprisoned Azov Regiment soldiers - ed.]
They are supplying us with information, including the conditions in which they are held, whether they have enough food, and the possibilities of freeing them."
Details: The minister insisted that "We all know that they will end up here, in Kyiv, and we are doing everything we can to achieve this."
Background:
- The city of Mariupol has been under the Russian siege since 1 March. Ukrainian troops defending Mariupol have retreated to Azovstal steel works, where they were besieged from late April. Mariupol civilians were evacuated in early May, but Russia has opposed all attempts to evacuate the Ukrainian soldiers defending Azovstal for a long time.
- On 16 May, Russia claimed that it had reached an agreement with the Ukrainian troops defending Azovstal concerning the evacuation of the wounded Ukrainian soldiers to Russian-held territories of Ukraine. On the night of 16-17 May, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the soldiers of the Mariupol garrison had completed their combat mission, and unit commanders had been ordered to save the lives of military personnel.
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Mariupol defenders must be freed in accordance with prisoner exchange procedures and returned to Ukraine. Russia has not ruled out a prisoner exchange, though some of the Russian occupiers are calling for Ukrainian soldiers to be tried under a "tribunal."
- On 20 May, the Russian Ministry of Defence said that all Ukrainian soldiers had left Azovstal; it claimed that a total of 2,439 soldiers had left the Azovstal bunkers since 16 May and that these soldiers are now considered Russian prisoners of war.
On 30 May, the relatives of Mariupol defenders said that they had no information about the fighters.
