Pushilin told about the hiding Ukrainian soldiers found on Azovstal
In Mariupol, during the demining of the territory of the Azovstal plant, the Russian and Donetsk military found the remaining militants there. According to Pushilin, they do not carry an "active threat". Nevertheless, it is not yet known how many of them are located on the territory of 10 square kilometers.
On the territory of the Mariupol Azovstal plant, soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were found who did not surrender together with the rest of the military. This was announced by the head of the DPR Denis Pushilin in an interview with RIA Novosti.
"They could hide purely physically, they could be lost somewhere, they got caught somewhere. There are already such identified ones, also directed to the place of detention. But isn't there someone else hiding? To answer 100 percent for now, until we thoroughly check every nook and cranny of Azovstal, and there the territory is quite serious. No one will sign it yet," he said, adding that the plant covers an area of 10 square kilometers.
According to him, the detected military do not pose an active threat. Now the sappers of the DPR and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are conducting "very thorough" demining of the territory, since there are many traps there. "Unfortunately, we already have wounded sappers, because the enemy remained treacherous even in this regard," Pushilin added.
When exactly the neutralization of the territory will end, Pushilin could not say, but noted that specialists are accelerating.
The interlocutor of the agency, answering the question about the presence of hostilities on the territory of the Mariupol plant, answered in the negative.
On May 20, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation announced that the territory of "Azovstal" - the underground structures of the enterprise in which the Ukrainian military and fighters of the Azov regiment were hiding (criminal cases were initiated against them in the Russian Federation) - completely came under Russian control. Since May 16, 2,439 servicemen of Ukrainian units have laid down their arms and surrendered. They were blocked on Azovstal for about a month.
Ekaterina, the wife of the commander of the Azov regiment Denis Prokopenko, said that the prisoners were being held in satisfactory conditions. This is reported by the British newspaper The Guardian. The publication notes that the militant managed to call his wife.
According to Ekaterina, they called her and told her that "the conditions [of detention] are more or less satisfactory": "They are fed, watered. The conditions suit them, and they have not been subjected to violence in this short period."
Meanwhile, the DPR is preparing the statute of the tribunal for detained militants. According to Pushilin, the time for this process is not limited by exact limits, but "it is not worth delaying." This document is being developed so that the collective West could not make claims, even conditional ones. "Or if these claims were made, they were absolutely empty," the head of the republic added.
Pushilin stressed that the international tribunal should be "as open and transparent as possible" so that no one would have doubts about the correctness of the process: "We will invite absolutely everyone. Some friendly countries have already agreed in advance." He did not announce the list of countries. But he assumed that the first stage of the trial would take place by the end of this summer.
The day after the announcement of the Russian Defense Ministry about the capture of all the military hiding at the plant, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said he expected an exchange.
Zelensky believes that the further development of events depends on the obligations assumed by the UN, the ICRC, the Russian Federation, "when they promised that they (Ukrainian troops) would be safe and expect one or another format of exchange."
A member of the Russian delegation at negotiations with Ukraine, the head of the LDPR faction Leonid Slutsky, during his visit to Donetsk, said that Moscow would study the issue of exchanging Azov militants for Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk.
"As for the exchange, we will study the issue. It is not us, but those who have the authority in Moscow to study and make decisions regarding the initiative of the exchange of Medvedchuk for the Azov people," he said.
As for the exchange of Ukrainian fighters for Medvedchuk, after Slutsky's words, the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov said that it was "hardly possible" to talk about it, since Medvedchuk is a citizen of Ukraine and is not a military man.
"In the case of persons who surrendered at Azovstal, there we are talking about the military and members of nationalist formations. Therefore, these are completely different categories of persons, and it is hardly possible to talk about any exchanges here," the Kremlin representative stressed.
At the same time, he did not answer the question whether it is possible to exchange militants for Russian prisoners. "I can't answer this question... In general, the exchange process in one form or another is ongoing. It is important to us - it is clear for what reasons. But the military is specifically engaged in this," Peskov said.
Angelina Milchenko
