LIKE UKRAINE They themselves had defied the odds, holding on when most thought it would be impossible. But on May 16, troops entrenched in tunnels under the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city, began to capitulate. By the end of the day, 264 Ukrainian fighters had surrendered to surrounding Russian units, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. Among them, 52 were seriously injured and evacuated to a hospital in Russian-occupied territory. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukrainian deputy prime minister, said they would be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war when their condition stabilized. Whether this happens is unclear. Nor is the fate of the other 212 Ukrainians who surrendered that of the hundreds of fighters, possibly more than a thousand, still believed to be inside the factory.
The surrender is the final chapter in one of the most gripping episodes in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Mariupol is the largest city between Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the Russian-backed breakaway territories of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. Less than a week after their February 24 invasion, Russian forces besieged Mariupol as part of their drive to establish a land bridge between Crimea and Donbass, cutting Ukraine off from the Sea of Azov. Mariupol was defended by Ukrainian marines and the Azov Battalion, a semi-independent unit of nationalist volunteers. But on April 22, they lost control of the city and were forced into the Azovstal factory.
Along with up to 1,000 civilians, Azov’s marines and fighters held out for weeks inside the factory’s deep tunnels. Russian forces resorted to shelling the area with bombs and artillery. At the end of April, the evacuations of civilians began. On May 8, Ukrainian defenders held a press conference from deep underground, using an internet connection provided by Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system. The willingness of the fighters and their commander, Major Serhiy Volyna, to fight to the death was a living denial of Russian propaganda that Ukrainians, especially those in predominantly Russian-speaking towns like Mariupol, had no confidence in their independent state.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, had authorized the fighters to surrender if the military situation became desperate. Last week, several of their wives called on world leaders to negotiate a way out for their husbands. But the Ukrainian and Russian governments have released no details of how the fighters’ release was agreed. In his speech announcing the evacuation, Mr. Zelensky thanked the International Committee of the Red Cross, responsible for civilian evacuations.
The military significance of the end of the siege will be limited. In principle, this frees up Russian forces for use in the country’s all-important offensive further north, which has been largely rebuffed. At one point, Russia had devoted 13,000 troops to subduing Mariupol, but that was when its defenders were still carrying out roving attacks around the city. Perhaps half of these forces have already been redeployed from the Ukrainian retreat in Azovstal. The remaining units are likely to be exhausted and unprepared to resume the offensive.
The importance of propaganda is greater. On May 17, Russian television presented the Ukrainian surrender as a decisive victory in what the Kremlin calls its “denazification” campaign. Vremya Pokazhet (Time Will Tell), a news commentary program, pointed out that the defenders had surrendered on Russia’s terms and their will to resist to the death had been shattered. On 60 minutesa propaganda broadcast, a guest mocked Oleksiy Arestovich, an aide to Mr. Zelensky, who said that Mariupol would never give up.
For Ukraine too, the decision to hand over the Mariupol defenders had high stakes. The Azov Battalion was founded during the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 as a paramilitary organization with far-right nationalist associations. Many of its personalities have political ambitions and relations with the government of Mr. Zelensky have not always been harmonious. If the soldiers under Azovstal had become martyrs, many Ukrainians might have demanded revenge, constraining the government in any future ceasefire negotiations. Some have already questioned the military decisions of March that led to the occupation of Mariupol.
Russia presents its acceptance of the Ukrainian surrender as a model of civilized warfare, even though some of its propagandists and MPs have demanded that they never be exchanged. Video clips show wounded POWs being checked for weapons and being loaded into ambulances, which are believed to have transported them to a hospital in Novoazovsk, a city in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. Mariupol’s devastated streets and bombed-out apartment complexes are visible in the clips, bearing witness to months of indiscriminate Russian attacks on civilians. Some estimate that 20,000 of the town’s original 450,000 inhabitants may have been killed during the siege. According to a survey conducted by Ia British newspaper.
As for Ukrainian prisoners of war in good health, extracts from Russian newsreels show them in buses awaiting evacuation. The programs do not say where they are taken, although they acknowledge that they will be “questioned”. Investigators in previously Russian-occupied areas near Kyiv have found overwhelming evidence of war crimes against Ukrainian POWs, including torture and execution. Ukraine hopes that Russia’s public promises of better treatment for Mariupol detainees will count for something. ■
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