by Southfront Staff at Southfront
UPDATE:
According to the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, 274 people left the Azovstal plant, including 53 seriously injured. They expect to return them to the territory controlled by Kiev through an exchange.
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar reported that 53 seriously wounded from Azovstal were taken to the hospital in Novoazovsk, another 221 people were sent to Olenivka. They are expected to be exchanged.
On May 16, as a result of negotiations with representatives of Ukrainian servicemen blocked on the territory of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, an agreement was reached on the evacuation of the gravely wounded Ukrainian militants.
Another ceasefire regime has been declared by the Russian military in the area of the facilities. A humanitarian corridor has been secured for evacuation of wounded Ukrainian servicemen to a medical facility in the city of Novoazovsk in the Donetsk People’s Republic in order to provide them with all necessary medical assistance.
Commander of the Vostok Brigade of the DPR Alexander Khodakovsky commented on the evacuation of Azov militants, claiming that the Russian military agreed to exchange them to the Russian prisoners of war.
“The evacuation process continues. These are the seriously wounded, who are carried out on stretchers. No one is releasing lightly wounded or alive, capable Azov fighters now.
We are talking only about the seriously injured. A decision was made at the highest level to exchange the seriously wounded for Russian prisoners of war.
This process is not quite similar to the surrender, because we are talking about gravely wounded servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine or Azov. The wounded were collected not in one place, but in several points. There was information that there were not enough stretchers to take them out.
Representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine came to our positions, were designated and asked to clear certain minefields in order to unblock the passage.”
According to the DPR commander, earlier on the same day, nine Ukrainian servicemen raised a white flag and left the territory of Azovstal. The brigade commander explained that they represented a larger group of militants who agreed for surrender. The Russian side agreed to the negotiations.
The first video showing the released “gravely wounded” Azov fighter was shared by a Russian military reporter on the spot. At first glance, no wounds are visible, and the real state of health of the Ukrainian fighter has been questioned…
Continue Reading