Heavy fighting erupted Thursday at a steel plant besieged by Russian forces, where hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers have dug in for weeks in what has become the last resistance stronghold in the bombed-out port city of Mariupol.
After the evacuation of more than 100 civilians from the plant, attention turns to the fate of the troops still inside the plant’s maze of underground tunnels and bunkers.
Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers are still hiding in the mill, many of them wounded. Some civilians are also with them.
In a video statement recorded Thursday from underground bunkers, Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, said “injured soldiers are dying in agony due to lack of proper treatment.”
The Azov Regiment is a far-right armed group that was incorporated into the National Guard of Ukraine after Russia’s first invasion in 2014.
Palamar urged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to help ensure the evacuation of the wounded and civilians still in the bunkers. He denounced the Russians for “refusing to observe any ethical standards and destroying people before the eyes of the world.”
Russia maintains that its forces are not entering the steel plant’s maze of tunnels, but Palamar said Russian forces are fighting at the Azovstal plant.
“It has been the third day that the enemy has broken into Azovstal territory. Fierce and bloody fighting is taking place,” Palamar said.
The sprawling seaside mill of Azovstal is a key war target for Russian forces as the last bastion of resistance on Ukraine’s southeastern coast, after a grueling and devastating siege of Mariupol.
Surrendering fighters could be arrested
Counting both the healthy and the wounded among their ranks, the choice of the Ukrainian troops seems to be to fight to the death or to surrender in the hope of saving themselves under the terms of international humanitarian law.
But experts say the troops are unlikely to have an easy way out, and may struggle to make it out a free man, or even alive.
“They have the right to fight to the death, but if they surrender to Russia, they can be stopped,” said Marco Sassoli, a professor of international law at the University of Geneva. “It’s just your choice.”
Laurie Blank, a professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta who specializes in international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict, said wounded combatants are considered “knocked out of action,” literally “knocked out of action,” and can be detained as prisoners of war. .
“Russia could allow wounded Ukrainian troops to return to Ukrainian areas, but it is not obliged to do so,” he said.
The wives of at least two Ukrainian soldiers inside the steelworks have been in Rome pleading with the international community to evacuate the soldiers there, arguing that they deserve the same rights as civilians.
Kateryna Prokopenko, whose husband, Denys Prokopenko, commands the Azov Regiment at the plant, told The Associated Press that she had not heard from him for more than 36 hours before she finally heard from him on Wednesday.
Prokopenko’s husband told him that Russian soldiers had entered Azovstal and “our soldiers are fighting, it’s crazy and hard to describe.”
“We don’t want them to die, they won’t give up,” said Kateryna Prokopenko. “They are waiting for the bravest countries to evacuate them. We will not let this tragedy happen after this long lockdown.”
“We have to evacuate our men as well.”
Ukraine repels the Russians in the east
Ukrainian forces said Thursday they repelled Russian attacks in the east and recaptured some territory, even as Moscow moved to obstruct the flow of Western weapons into Ukraine by bombing train stations and other supply line targets across the country.
West of Mariupol, Ukrainian forces made some progress on the border in the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv, where Russian troops were reportedly attempting to launch a counter-offensive and repelled 11 Russian attacks in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the ministry said. army.
Five people have been killed and at least 25 others injured in shelling of several eastern cities over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said.
The Russian military said it used air- and sea-launched missiles to destroy electrical power installations at five train stations in Ukraine on Wednesday. Artillery and aircraft also attacked troop strongholds and fuel and ammunition depots.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of “resorting to the tactics of missile terrorism to sow fear in Ukraine.”
In response to the attacks in his late-night video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “All these crimes will be answered, legally and practically, on the battlefield.”
The flurry of attacks comes as Russia prepares to celebrate Victory Day on May 9, which marks the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union. The world is watching whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will use the occasion to declare victory in Ukraine or expand what he calls the “special military operation.”
A declaration of all-out war would allow Putin to introduce martial law and mobilize reservists to make up for significant troop losses.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the speculation as “nonsense”.
CLOCK | Military losses mount in Ukraine as the war continues:
More than three months after the Ukraine war, military casualties are mounting on the front lines. But Ukraine’s military is far from defeated and shows signs of resilience. 2:04
More steelwork evacuations possible
The Russian government said on the Telegram messaging app that it would open another evacuation corridor from the Azovstal steelworks during certain hours from Thursday to Saturday. But there was no immediate confirmation of those arrangements from other parties, and many previous assurances from the Kremlin have failed, with the Ukrainians blaming the Russians for continued fighting.
It was unclear how many Ukrainian fighters were still inside, but the Russians estimated the number at around 2,000 in recent weeks, with 500 reportedly wounded. A few hundred civilians also remained there, the Ukrainian side said.
Mariupol, and the plant in particular, have come to symbolize the misery inflicted by war. The Russians have pulverized most of the city in a two-month siege that has left civilians trapped with little food, water, medicine or warmth.
The city’s fall would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, allow Russia to establish a land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and free up troops to fight in other parts of the Donbas.
Reference-www.cbc.ca