Hundreds more fighters have emerged from the Mariupol stronghold where they made their last stand and surrendered, Russia said Thursday, and the Red Cross worked to register them and their comrades as prisoners of war, as the end of a key battle in the conflict drew closer.
Meanwhile, in the first war crimes trial held by Ukraine, a captured Russian soldier testified that he shot an unarmed Ukrainian civilian in the head on his officer’s orders and asked the victim’s widow to forgive him.
A monthslong siege of Mariupol that left it in ruins and the drama of last-ditch fighters at a steel plant holding off Russian forces turned the strategic port city into a worldwide symbol of suffering and defiance. With Ukraine saying their mission is com-plete, the fighters have been told to save their lives — and international attention is focused on how they will be treated. The Russian military said that a total of 1,730 Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal steelworks have surrendered since Monday. At least some were taken by the Russians to a former penal colony in territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, and a separatist official said that those who needed medical assistance were hospitalized.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that it has registered hundreds of prisoners of war from the plant, starting Tuesday, under an agreement between Russia and Ukraine. But the Geneva-based humanitarian agency, part of whose mission is to help ensure the rights of prisoners of war, has not said whether it has visited them.
While Ukraine said it hopes to get the soldiers back in a prisoner swap, Russia has threatened to investigate some for war crimes.
It’s not clear how many fighters are now left in the warren of underground tunnels and bunkers at the plant. Russia previously estimated that it had been battling some 2,000 troops in the waterside site.
The emptying of the plant would allow Russia to claim complete control of Mariupol, a long-sought victory but one that holds largely symbolic importance at this point since the city is already effec-tively under Moscow’s control and military analysts say most of the Russian forces that were tied down by the drawn-out fighting have already left.
Still, it would be a clear win in a war that has seen Moscow suffer a series of setbacks in the face of stiffer than expected Ukrainian resistance. Kyiv’s troops, bolstered by Western weapons, thwarted Russia’s initial goal of taking the capital and have since bogged them down in the Donbas, the eastern region that President Vladimir Putin now has his sights on.—AP
