Mariupol PoWs will face Russian tribunal, separatist warns

POKROVSK, UKRAINE Concern mounted Saturday over Ukrainian fighters who became prisoners at the end of Russia’s brutal threemonth siege of Mariupol, as a Moscow-backed separatist leader vowed they would face tribunals.

Russia claimed full control of the Azovstal steel plant, which for weeks was the last holdout in Mariupol and a symbol of Ukrainian tenacity in the strategic port city, now in ruins with more than 20,000 residents feared dead. Its seizure delivers Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly wanted victory in the war he began in February.

The Russian Defence Ministry released video of Ukrainian soldiers being detained after announcing that its forces had removed the last holdouts from the plant’s extensive underground tunnels. Denis Pushilin, the pro-Kremlin head of an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, claimed that 2,439 people were in custody. He said on Russian state TV that the figure includes some foreign nationals, although he did not provide details.

Family members of the steel mill fighters, who came from a variety of military and law enforcement units, have pleaded for them to be given rights as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Ukraine. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Saturday that Ukraine “will fight for the return” of every one of them.

Pushilin said the Ukrainians were sure to face a tribunal. Russian officials and state media have sought to characterize the fighters as neoNazis and criminals.

Among the defenders were members of the Azov Regiment, whose far-right origins have been seized on by the Kremlin as part of its effort to cast the invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government has not commented on Russia’s claim of capturing Azovstal. Ukraine’s military had told the fighters their mission was complete and they could come out. It described their extraction as an evacuation, not a mass surrender.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov reported Saturday that Russia destroyed a Ukrainian special-operations base near Odesa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port, as well as a significant cache of western-supplied weapons in northern Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region. There was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.

The Ukrainian military reported heavy fighting in much of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. “As in previous days, the Russian army is trying to attack Sloviansk and Sievierodonetsk,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. He said Ukrainian forces are holding off the offensive “every day.”

Sievierodonetsk is the main city under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region, which together with the Donetsk region makes up the Donbas. Gov. Serhii Haidai said the only functioning hospital in the city has just three doctors and supplies for 10 days.

Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region, is critical to Russia’s objective of capturing all of eastern Ukraine and saw fierce fighting last month after Moscow’s troops backed off from Kyiv. Russian shelling on Saturday killed seven civilians in the region, the governor said.

A monastery in the Donetsk village of Bohorodichne was evacuated after being hit by a Russian airstrike, the regional police said Saturday. About 100 monks, nuns and children were seeking safe shelter in the basement of the church. No one was hurt, police said.

Russia released video of Ukrainian soldiers being detained after announcing it had removed the last holdouts from Azovstal’s tunnels