The Russian army announced this Friday the “total liberation” of the strategic city of Mariupol, in eastern Ukraine, after the surrender of the last soldiers entrenched for weeks in the Azovstal steel company, which means that it has already taken the factory that became a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance in the city now devastated by the Russians.
“As of May 16, 2016, 2,439 Nazis from the [batallón] Azov and the Ukrainian military blocked at the steel mill surrendered. Today, May 20, the last batch of 531 fighters surrendered,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
“The tunnels at the site, where the fighters were hiding, came under the complete control of the Russian armed forces,” it added.
According to the spokesman, Defense Minister Serguei Shoigu informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of “the end of the operation and the total liberation of the complex [de Azovstal] and the city of Mariupol”.
Konashenkov said the head of the Azov battalion, a militia integrated into the Ukrainian army, surrendered to Russian forces and was evacuated in a “special armored vehicle” to prevent him from being attacked by hostile residents.
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Shoigu had claimed that his troops have “rescued” 177 civilians and captured 1,908 “nationalists” who “have laid down their arms,” according to the TASS news agency.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) requested on Thursday “immediate” access to these prisoners, from whom it is also trying to collect data. The Ukrainian authorities, for their part, maintain their interest in carrying out a future prisoner exchange with the soldiers who are captured after leaving the steel mill.