Garrison has ‘fulfilled its combat mission’, Ukraine general staff says; officials say ‘exchange procedure will take place’ to bring evacuees home
More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers, many of them wounded, have been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol, appearing to cede control of the city toUkraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said late on Monday that 53 heavily wounded soldiers were evacuated to a hospital in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk and that more than 200 others were transported through a corridor to Olenivka.
Buses carrying Ukrainian soldiers evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol arrive under escort of the pro-Russian military in Novoazovsk.The evacuation is likely to mark the end of the longest and bloodiest battle of the Ukraine war and a significant defeat for Ukraine. Mariupol is now in ruins after a Russian siege that Ukraine says killed tens of thousands of people in the city.
For Ukrainians, the Azovstal plant has become a symbol of resistance, with hundreds of troops continuing to fight on there even after the rest of the city had fallen to Russian forces.The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said that the soldiers defending the steel plant had fulfilled their combat mission.
“The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel,” the General Staff said in a statement on its Facebook account. “Efforts to rescue defenders who remain on the territory of Azovstal continue.”
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