Ukrainian forces push Russians out of Kharkiv region, back over border
Hundreds more Ukrainian fighters defending Mariupol’s steel plant surrendered their arms Thursday, as international fears mounted that Moscow will retaliate against the captured forces.
The Russian military reported that 1,730 Ukrainian troops have laid down their arms since Monday in the Ukrainian Alamo, which has been the last bastion of the bombed-out city.
The Kremlin said more than 900 Ukrainian fighters who surrendered at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol this week have been shipped off to a former prison colony in a separatist stronghold in the Donetsk region.
According to Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, at least 959 soldiers from the steelworks were shipped off to a “pre-trial detention center” in Olenivka in the Donetsk region, which is the site of a former prison colony.
At least 51 of the Azovstal defenders who suffered serious injuries were transported to a hospital in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. The fate of these soldiers being held by the enemy is unknown.
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman claimed on Telegram that the Russian army was holding more than 3,000 Ukrainian civilians from Mariupol in Olenivka, and that some of them were being interrogated and tortured.
It was not clear how many Ukrainian fighters were left in the maze of tunnels and bunkers at the bombed-out steel plant. Russia in recent weeks had estimated that it had been battling some 2,000 troops at Azovstal.
“More than a half have already left – more than half have laid down their arms,” said Denis Pushilin, head of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic.
Pushilin told the Solovyov Live internet television channel that the captured fighters are being treated well at the former penal colony.
“Let them surrender, let them live, let them honestly face the charges for all their crimes,” Pushilin said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that it has registered hundreds of POWs from the plant under an agreement between Russia and Ukraine. It did not say whether it had visited the prisoners.
The ICRC said a team from the Geneva-based humanitarian agency, which has experience in dealing with prisoners of war and prisoner exchanges, did not transport to “the places where they are held.”
The Red Cross cited rules under the Geneva Conventions that should allow the organization to interview prisoners of war “without witnesses” and that visits with them should not be “unduly restricted.”
While Ukraine said it hopes to get the soldiers back in a prisoner swap, Russian authorities have threatened to investigate some for war crimes and put them on trial, branding them “Nazis” and criminals.
The defense of the steel mill has been led by Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins have been seized on by Moscow as part of its effort to cast its invasion as a war against Nazi influence in Ukraine.
The regiment, formed in 2014 as a militia to fight Russian-backed separatists, denies being fascist, racist or neo-Nazi, and Ukraine says it has been reformed away from its radical nationalist origins to be integrated into the National Guard.
Amnesty International had pushed for the Red Cross to be given access to the troops, citing lawless executions allegedly carried out by Russian forces in Ukraine and saying the Azovstal defenders “must not meet the same fate.”
The Kremlin said the combatants would be treated in line with international norms, though some Russian lawmakers demanded they be put on trial and one demanded they face the death penalty.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia on Thursday of weaponizing food in Ukraine by holding “hostage” the food supply for millions of Ukrainians.
“The Russian government seems to think that using food as a weapon will help accomplish what its invasion has not – to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people,” he told the UN Security Council. “The food supply for millions of Ukrainians and millions more around the world has quite literally been held hostage by the Russian military.”
He said the food crisis will also impact millions around the world who import goods from the country.
“The decision to weaponize food is Moscow’s and Moscow’s alone,” Blinken said. “As a result of the Russian government’s actions some 20 million tons of grain sit unused in Ukrainian silos as global food supply dwindle, prices skyrocket, causing more around the world to experience food insecurity.”
With Post wires
