The last Ukrainian soldiers barricaded in the steel mill Azovstal in Mariupol received the order from kyiv to “stop defending the city,” one of the commanders said in a video message on Friday.
“The higher military command gave the order to save the lives of the military in our garrison and to stop defending the city,” said Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov regiment, one of the Ukrainian units present at the Mariupol steel mill.
This immense steel complex with its labyrinth of underground galleries built in Soviet times it was the last pocket of ukrainian resistance in this strategic port city in southeastern Ukraine, massively bombed by the Russians.
Following the recent evacuation of civilians, 1,908 Ukrainian soldiers entrenched in the bowels of the steelworks have since Monday surrendered to Russian forces, the Russian defense minister said.
“We managed to save the civilians, the seriously injured received the necessary help. We managed to evacuate them with a view to a later exchange” of prisoners, Prokopenko said. AFP
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