The Ministry of Defense announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor with Azovstal
The Russian and Ukrainian sides managed to coordinate the evacuation of the wounded from the territory of the Azovstal plant. A silence regime has been declared on the territory of the industrial zone of Mariupol. Ukrainian servicemen will be taken to the hospital in Novoazovsk. For more information, see the material "Newspapers.Ru».
Wounded Ukrainian soldiers began to be taken out of the territory of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol along the humanitarian corridor, the Russian Defense Ministry reports in Telegram. The corresponding agreement between the parties was reached on May 16. A silence regime was introduced in the territory around the enterprise.
The AFU fighters are being transported to a medical facility in Novoazovsk, Donetsk People's Republic, to provide them with all the necessary assistance.
The commander of the Vostok battalion of the DPR, Alexander Khodakovsky, spoke about the problem with the transportation of the wounded. "Our side was asked for help - to provide additional stretchers to speed up the process," he said.
Earlier, Khodakovsky reported that 10 people left the territory of Azovstal and surrendered. "The first ten military men with white flags came out of "our" tunnel - we are still pushing," he wrote. Later, the commander clarified that a group of people represented the interests of another, more significant group located in the basements.
I am happy when they surrender -do you think I am happy about their death, even the Azov people? And here the question is not only a propaganda gain, but also a human one: in the end, we are also responsible for the fact that Ukraine has become like this.
According to the territorial defense headquarters today, 219 people, including 40 children, were evacuated from Mariupol to Bezymennoye from 8:00 to 16:00. Currently, they are in the emergency assistance point.
Earlier, the DPR stated that there were no civilians left on the territory of Azovstal.
How civilians were evacuated
Russian servicemen and DPR forces took control of Mariupol by mid-April. The Ukrainian military and some civilians took refuge in the industrial zone and in the basements of Azovstal. The plant has a system of underground floors. Since the storming of such an object could lead to a large number of casualties among the Russian military, President Vladimir Putin ordered not to storm it, but to block it "so that a fly would not fly by." On May 4, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on a conference call that the remnants of the Ukrainian military group were blocked along the entire perimeter of Azovstal.
On April 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised that Kiev would withdraw from any negotiations with Moscow if "our people in Mariupol are destroyed." Later, he repeated the threat on May 6, saying that the death of Ukrainian military and civilians at Azovstal would exclude the possibility of negotiations.
On April 26, during a meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Moscow, Putin agreed on the evacuation of civilians from the plant with the participation of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The first group of civilians was evacuated from Azovstal on May 1 - about 100 people were transported to Zaporozhye. On May 6, another 50 women, children and elderly people were removed from the plant. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 18 men, 22 women and 11 children were evacuated from the enterprise during the period from May 5 to May 7.
On May 13, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for the Reintegration of uncontrolled territories of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk said that Kiev wants to sign a document on how the evacuation from the territory of the plant will take place.
On May 14, Turkey announced its readiness to send a vessel to evacuate people from Azovstal. Ankara's plan provided for the transfer of people to the port of Berdyansk by land and further transportation to Istanbul on a Turkish ship. The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, appealed to Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to facilitate the evacuation and not to be deceived by "criminals who want to avoid trial." In particular, he claims that members of the Azov battalion are allegedly known for regular statements insulting "great Islamic values and ridiculing the religion of Islam in general."
Leonid Tsvetaev
