Today, talks are about about 38 seriously wounded soldiers. “We are working step by step,” said Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Irina Vereshchuk in the Telegram messaging service, refusing the figure of 500-600 people presented by some media.
According to her, negotiations on the “withdrawal of seriously wounded fighters from Azovstal in exchange for Russian prisoners” are “extremely difficult”.
Verichuk told AFP on Tuesday that “more than 1,000” Ukrainian soldiers, including “hundreds of wounded”, were still in the huge Azovstal complex, which Russian forces are besieging in Mariupol after all civilians were evacuated last week. United nations.
“There are people who are seriously injured and need to be evacuated urgently,” he noted, adding that “the situation is deteriorating every day” at this factory in Mariupol, a port city in the southeast of the country, which has been devastated by fighting and fighting. Almost entirely under Russian control.
With civilians evacuated from Azovstal, Ukrainian authorities are now evacuating wounded soldiers, medical workers and military chaplains from the steel plant, awaiting help from international organizations and Turkey.
Russia launched a military attack on Ukraine on February 24 that killed more than 3,000 civilians, according to the United Nations, which warns that the real number is likely to be much higher.
The military offensive has caused more than 13 million people to flee, more than 5.5 million of whom have left the country, according to the latest United Nations figures.
The international community in general condemned the Russian invasion, and responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and tightening economic and political sanctions on Moscow.
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Lusa / end
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