LONDON — More than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered in what was the last stronghold of the city of Mariupol, the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday. Since Monday, 1,730 troops, who were holed up in the Azovstal steel plant, have been evacuated from what remained of the mill.
About 900 Ukrainian soldiers have been sent, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, to a former prison colony located 55 miles north of the port city. The Kremlin’s Defense Ministry disclosed that the 80 soldiers who surrendered earlier in the week were being treated in hospitals in the Russian-held cities of Donetsk and Novoazovsk.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a humanitarian agency, said it had gathered personal information from the soldiers and registered them as prisoners of war as they left the steelworks. This was to ensure that the fighters would be given humane treatment under the Geneva Conventions. The ICRC added that it was not transporting the soldiers to where they would be held but said that it must “have immediate access to all POWs in all places where they are held.”
But there are concerns over how the soldiers will be treated once under Russian control. “Prisoners of war must not be subjected to any form of torture or ill treatment, and should be given immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross,” said Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “The relevant authorities must fully respect the rights of prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.”
Ukrainian officials expressed hope for a prisoner exchange, with President Volodymyr Zelensky ensuring that “the most influential international forces are informed and, as much as possible, involved in saving our troops."
Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, told the BBC that he hoped Russia would honor the prisoner exchange. “We are ready to exchange, but they don't even take [the] bodies of their soldiers and officers from the field,” he said. “So I hope we will have [the] exchange, and I hope to see our heroes back at home, and see them alive.”
However, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s State Duma, said on Tuesday that “Nazi criminals should not be exchanged,” referring to the Azovstal fighters. “Our country treats those who surrendered or were captured humanely,” Volodin said. “But with regards to Nazis, our position should be unchanged: These are war criminals, and we must do everything so that they stand trial.”