First Batch of Azov Battalion Fighters Surrender at the Azovstal Plant in Mariupol

According Alexander Khodakovsky, the founder of the Vostok Battalion (DPR), 9 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.

“Now a lively stage of negotiations is underway. It was just the first group leaving. As it turned out, the group left, representing the interests of a larger group that continues to be at Azovstal,” Khodakovsky said on the air of the 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya 1 TV channel.

Earlier this morning, Russian authorities agreed to evacuate wounded Ukrainian troops from Mariupol steelworks, and ordered that soldiers were to be taken to hospital in separatist-controlled town, making them prisoners of war.

In addition to the initial 9 men waving the white flag, the first batch of 51 wounded Ukrainian soldiers from Azovstal compound have been brought to the surface and through the evacuation corridor exiting Azovstal, with both buses and ambulances waiting to ferry them to be processed in the DPR. The process is said to be slow, as men are being carries through ruined grounds on stretchers, and care is being taken to avoid any security problems.

This is how the corridor near Azovstal looks like for wounded Ukrainian servicemen, buses and ambulances are waiting for them:

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Still, it is believed that some 1,000 Ukrainian troops remain in the tunnels underneath the gigantic steelworks complex, as soldiers, some of whom are members of the Nazi Azov battalion, have resisted Russian military operations, and numerous attempts to storm their underground hideout.

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