More than 260 Ukrainian fighters, including 53 wounded, were evacuated on Monday from the Azovstal steelworks, the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, announced Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Malyar.
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“On May 16, 53 seriously injured people were evacuated from Azovstal to Novoazovsk for medical assistance, and another 211 were transported to Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor,” she said in a video.
These two localities are located in territory controlled by Russian and pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, but Ganna Malyar specified that the fighters must in the future be repatriated to territory controlled by Ukraine, “within the framework of an exchange procedure.
In a statement, the Ukrainian General Staff confirmed the evacuation of these 264 soldiers and indicated that “rescue activities of the defenders who remain on the territory of Azovstal continue”, without specifying how many Ukrainian soldiers remained on square.
“Mariupol defenders are heroes of our time. They are forever in history”, adds the Ukrainian general staff, according to whom their fierce struggle notably “prevented the implementation of a (Russian) plan for the rapid capture of Zaporijjia”, a large Ukrainian city and administrative center located more than 200 km to the west.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video that the main thing was to “save the lives of our guys”.
“I want to emphasize this: Ukraine needs its living heroes. This is our principle,” he added.
Last week, the Ukrainian authorities said that more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers – including 600 wounded, according to one of their commanders – were still present in the underground galleries of this huge steel plant which has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. launched on February 24.
They had entrenched themselves in Azovstal following suffering the siege of Mariupol for more than a month, a strategic port in the south-east of Ukraine attacked by the Russian army at the start of the war and today totally devastated.
