Donetsk President: More than half of Ukrainian militants surrendered at Azovstal plant
President of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin revealed that more than half of the Ukrainian militants trapped in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol had surrendered.
In a televised interview today, Pushilin said, “More than half of the armed men left the basements of the factory and went out raising the white flag while handing over their weapons.”
Russian and Donetsk forces besieged the city of Mariupol on the 7th of last March, while the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced on the 21st of April the city was completely liberated. But more than two thousand armed men from the Ukrainian army and the extremist Nazi Azov battalion were holed up in the basements of the Azovstal factory in the city. On the 16th of this month, the surrounded militants began to surrender as 959 of them laid down their weapons within two days.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced earlier today that 771 of the battalion’s members had surrendered at the Azovstal plant during the past 24 hours.
Inas Abdulkareem