Over 1,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war from Azovstal transferred to Russia
OLHA HLUSHCHENKO – WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2022, 00:53
Russian media have reported that over 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner by the Russians in Mariupol have been transferred to the Russian Federation for further investigations.
Source: Russian state-owned news agency TASS, quoting a source in law enforcement
Quote: "Over 1,000 people from Azovstal have been transferred to Russia. Law enforcement authorities are closely working with them. In the near future, after conducting face-to-face interviews with a number of prisoners of war, the investigators are also planning to transfer them to Russia."
Details: According to TASS’s source in Russian law enforcement, the investigators are planning to transfer another group of Ukrainian prisoners of war to Russia in the near future.
The source said that over 100 people, "including foreign mercenaries who surrendered in Mariupol," might currently be in Moscow.
Background:
- The city of Mariupol has been under the Russian siege since 1 March. Ukrainian troops defending Mariupol, including the Azov Regiment of the National Guard, marines, border guards, and police officers, retreated to Azovstal steel works, where they were besieged from late April. The marines asked for an extraction procedure to be carried out to evacuate Azovstal defenders, while the Azov Regiment called for the evacuation of at least the most severely wounded soldiers.
- On 18 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. On 16 May, the evacuation of seriously wounded Ukrainian soldiers to Russian-held territories began. There were to be several other phases of evacuation to evacuate all the remaining soldiers. Formally, they became Russia’s prisoners of war. The Ukrainian government is planning to have them returned via a prisoner exchange procedure.
- 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 Azovstal bunkers since 16 May and that these soldiers are now considered Russian prisoners of war.
- On 6 June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine confirmed that over 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers from Azovstal are being held by the Russian occupiers. The Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine is working on releasing them.
