The soldiers resist in the tunnels of the Azovstal facilities, hungry, with almost no light, with serious injuries and without health guarantees
Dirty, wounded and dark or in semi-darkness. This is how the Ukrainian soldiers who survived the Russian assault on the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol resist. Their faces and living conditions have been made public on the Telegram channel of the Azov Battalion, through which the unit asked this Wednesday for help to be evacuated and receive medical help.
The situation in the coastal city has been desperate for weeks. The Russian advance has advanced slowly, but finally all the Ukrainian resistance ended up concentrating on the industrial facilities, a gigantic space that underground adds more than 20 kilometers of tunnels. Dozens of civilians and an uncertain number of soldiers took refuge in them while an incessant rain of projectiles fell on the surface.
On May 3, the assault on the complex intensified and Russian forces managed to break into the facilities. Last Saturday, after several attempts, all the civilians were removed, as confirmed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk. It was not a simple operation, as she herself confirmed, since there were “constant violations” of the ceasefire by the Russian forces.
With the civilians safe in Zaporiya, today only the soldiers remain, the majority belonging to the controversial Azov Battalion, linked to Ukrainian nationalism and the extreme right. With them, policemen, volunteers and soldiers from other units that joined the defense of the coastal city also fight and survive.
One of the wounded makes the victory sign. /
The photos show mutilated men, with dramatic scars, supporting themselves with crutches or being treated for their injuries in the makeshift underground hospital. A situation of “total unhealthiness, with open wounds dressed with non-sterilized bandage remains, without the necessary medication and even without food,” they describe in the publication of the Azov Battalion on Telegram.
The desperate circumstances they face have led the group’s leaders to launch a request for help. “We call on the UN and the Red Cross to demonstrate their humanity and reaffirm the basic principles on which they were created by rescuing the wounded who are no longer combatants.” “The military you see in the photos and hundreds more at the Azovstal plant defended Ukraine and the entire civilized world with serious injuries at the cost of their own health. Can’t Ukraine and the world community now protect and care for them?
The answer given by the Ukrainian president himself, Volodimir Zelensky, does not give much hope since the country “lacks the heavy weapons necessary to liberate Mariupol.” For this reason it is practically impossible to guarantee the departure of the military with guarantees since the bombs continue to fall on Azovstal. In the last hours, “there were 38 air attacks, including 4 strategic bombings, cannon artillery, tanks, etc. continue to operate,” say the Azov. “The enemy does not cease in its attempts to seize the Ukrainian fortress and continues to carry out daily assaults with the support of the infantry,” they detail. The last of Mariúpol are running out of time, but they refuse to disappear in silence. “The entire civilized world must see the conditions in which they find themselves and act!”
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