Added to the war for the future of Ukraine is now the battle over the story of the last Ukrainian resistance fighters from the Azovstal metallurgical complex in Mariupol, heroes for Kyiv, "war criminals" for Russian judicial and political circles who have even called for be executed.
The fate and final fate of the 959 soldiers evacuated by the Russian army – some of them in vehicles with Z engraved on the bodywork – is an enigma. Some of them, wounded and showing signs of malnutrition, were transferred to a hospital in the Russian-occupied zone, in the territory of the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Yesterday the Russian army distributed two videos showing images of some of these wounded soldiers. In one of them, two soldiers addressed the cameras to affirm that they were well treated and that they had received medical treatment and food. The context in which these videos were recorded and whether the people who appear in them were forced to do so is unknown.
The resistance in Azovstal, the last redoubt in Ukrainian hands in the city of Mariúpol, ended on Tuesday, when the Ukrainian Defense Ministry determined that the soldiers should survive because they had “completed their mission”. Inside were soldiers from the best trained forces of the Ukrainian army, also from the National Guard, a body within which the so-called Azov regiment was integrated.
The Azov regiment was formed in the hours after the Maidan uprising in 2014 by elements of the extreme right. These origins, later diluted by the departure of the most radical elements and the entry of soldiers with no specific affiliation, are the main alibi for Moscow in its objective of "denazifying" Ukraine, one of the excuses used to justify the invasion.
For this reason, as soon as the evacuation of the last resisters from Azovstal became known, members of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament, asked that they not be exchanged with Russian soldiers imprisoned by the Ukrainians. In some cases, the execution of some of the evacuees was requested and the Prosecutor's Office has requested that the Azov regiment be considered a terrorist organization to be tried.
The silence of the Kremlin on the final destination of the evacuees contrasts with the declarations of the Government of Kyiv, which assured at first that they had agreed to the exchange of prisoners and, even, that they had "Putin's personal word" for it.
The prosecution of prisoners of war for having taken part in hostilities explicitly contravenes the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.
In the story of the Kyiv war, the resistance of Azovstal, which has occupied Russian troops and resources, has been decisive so that the great cities of the north, such as Kyiv and Kharkiv, did not fall into the hands of the invaders and has granted the Ukrainian army vital time to allow a counteroffensive in the north.
The capture of Mariupol is the biggest victory of the Russian army since the war began on February 24. For some reason, however, the Russian euphoria has not materialized. And there is even doubt that the episode is over. A leader of the Luhansk separatists said yesterday that the top leaders of the Ukrainian military were still inside the metallurgical compound.
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