Russian claims to capture Mariupol fuels concerns for POWs
Concerns rose on Saturday over Ukrainian fighters captured at the end of a brutal three-month siege of Mariupol, Russia, as the Moscow-backed separatist vowed he would face a tribunal.
Russia claimed full control of the Azovstal steel plant, which was last held for weeks in Mariupol and was a symbol of Ukrainian determination in the strategic port city, now fearing more than 20,000 residents to die. Its capture gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a much-anticipated victory in the war that started in February.
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As the West rallies behind Ukraine, Polish President Andrzej Duda arrived in Ukraine on an unannounced visit and will address the country’s parliament on Sunday, his office said.
Poland, which has welcomed thousands of Ukrainian refugees since the start of the war, is a strong supporter of Ukraine’s desire to join the European Union. With Russia closing Ukrainian ports, Poland has become a major gateway for Western humanitarian aid and weapons to Ukraine and continues to help move Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products to global markets.
The Russian Defense Ministry released a video of Ukrainian soldiers being detained as their forces removed the last holdout from the vast underground tunnels of the Mariupol plant. Denis Pusilin, a Kremlin supporter from a region in eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, claimed 2,439 people were in custody. He said on Russian state TV that the figure included some foreign nationals, although he did not give details.
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Family members of steel mill fighters from various military and law enforcement units have requested that they be given rights as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Ukraine. Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshuk said on Saturday that Ukraine would “struggle for the return” of each of them.
Convoys of buses escorted by Russian armored vehicles left the plant on Friday. At least some Ukrainians were taken to the former penal colony. Others were hospitalized, Russian officials said.
“The Ukrainians are certain to face the tribunal,” Pusilin said. Russian officials and state media have tried to characterize the fighters as neo-Nazis and criminals.
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“I believe that justice should be restored. There are requests for this from the common people, society and possibly even conscious parts of the world community,” the Russian state news agency TASS quoted Pusilin as saying.
Among the defenders were members of the Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins the Kremlin has usurped as part of its efforts to invade Ukraine as part of a war against Nazi influence.
The Ukrainian government has not commented on Russia’s claim to capture Azovostal. The Ukrainian military told the fighters that their mission was accomplished and that they could leave. It described their evacuation as an evacuation, not a mass surrender.
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The Mariupol occupation advances Russia’s efforts to build a land bridge from the Donbass region to the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
The impact on the wider war remained unclear. Many Russian troops had already been redeployed from Mariupol to other areas of conflict.
Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday that Russia destroyed a Ukrainian special operations base near the main Black Sea port of Odessa and a significant cache of Western-supplied weapons in the northern Ukrainian region of Zhytomyr. There is no confirmation from Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces have reported heavy fighting in most of the eastern Donbass.
“The situation in Donbass is extremely difficult,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nightly video address to the nation. “As before, the Russian army is trying to attack Slovensk and Sverodnesk.” He added that the Ukrainian military continues to fend off attacks “every day”.
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The main Ukrainian-controlled city in the Luhansk region is Svyarodnesk, which, together with the Donetsk region, forms the Donbass. Serhi Haidai, the city’s only functioning hospital, has only three doctors and supplies for 10 days.
Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region, is crucial to Russia’s goal of capturing entire eastern Ukraine and was the scene of fierce fighting after Moscow’s troops retreated from Kyiv last month. The governor said seven civilians were killed and 10 others wounded in Russian shelling elsewhere in the region on Saturday.
Regional police said on Saturday that a monastery in the village of Bohorodichne in the Donetsk region had been evacuated.
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Russian claims to capture Mariupol fuels concerns for POWs
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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