Ukraine ‘doing all it can’ to save Mariupol steel plant fighters but their fate remains uncertain

Ukraine is doing everything it can to “save” the lives of remaining soldiers trapped inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, a senior official said.

On Monday, more than 260 Ukrainian fighters left the ruins of the Azovstal plant and handed themselves to Russian forces in a negotiated deal.

Ukrainian officials hope they can be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war, but one Moscow lawmaker said the Ukrainian soldiers should be brought to “justice”.

According to Russian news agencies, Russia’s parliament could take up a motion on Wednesday to prevent any exchange of Azov Regiment fighters, who held out for months inside the steelworks.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said negotiations for the fighters’ release were ongoing, as were plans to rescue fighters who are still inside the sprawling steel mill.

In his address on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle. I think that every adequate person will understand these words.

“The operation to rescue the defenders of Mariupol was started by our military and intelligence officers. To bring the boys home, the work continues, and this work needs delicacy”.

He added that "the most influential international mediators are involved" in the rescue plans. Officials have not said how many remain inside.

According to the Reuters news agency, an additional seven buses were seen carrying an unknown number of Ukrainian soldiers from the plant to a former penal colony on Tuesday in the town of Olenivka, about 55 miles north of Mariupol.

While Russia called it a surrender, the Ukrainians avoided that word and instead said the plant’s troops had successfully completed its mission to tie down Russian forces and was under new orders.

“To save their lives. Ukraine needs them. This is the main thing,” Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said.

Russia said it intends to interrogate the troops to "identify the nationalists" and determine whether they were involved in crimes against civilians.

The four-square-mile complex was the last hold-out of Ukraine’s forces in Mariupol, which has witnessed the heaviest bombardment of the war.

Formal capture of the city would make Mariupol the biggest city to be taken by Moscow’s forces during its nearly three-months long war.

The Russian bombardment killed more than 20,000 civilians, according to Ukraine, and left the remaining inhabitants with little food, water, or medicine.

During the siege, Russian forces launched lethal airstrikes on a maternity hospital and a theatre where civilians had taken shelter in scenes that shocked the world.

Gaining full control of Mariupol would give Russia a ‘land bridge’ to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and could also free up Russian forces to fight elsewhere.