Posted on 05/17/2022 9:19:20 PM PDT by AmericaFirst101
Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters trapped for more than two months in the vast Azovstal steel works have surrendered to their Russian besiegers after their commanders finally called time on the defense of Mariupol.
A total of 264 soldiers, 53 of them badly wounded, were taken in a convoy of buses to two towns held by Russian-backed rebels in the Donetsk area, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday. It is unclear how many more are left in the steelworks, where as many as 1,000 fighters had been holed up in a network of underground tunnels and caverns in a medieval siege.
(snip)
Russia is likely to drive a hard bargain in any prisoner swap, especially for soldiers from the Azov Regiment, which was set up as a paramilitary militia unit with far-right links during the original 2014 Donbas war. President Vladimir Putin has consistently portrayed his “special operation” in Ukraine as an attempt to “denazify” the country, and Azov has been the target of his TV propagandists.
Within hours of the Azovstal surrender, the Russian Duma was reportedly debating a law that would prevent Azov Regiment prisoners being swapped for Russians. Vyacheslav Volodin, the parliamentary speaker, said “Nazi criminals” should not be exchanged. Lawmaker Leonid Slutzky went even further, demanding a moratorium on the death penalty be lifted to punish the Ukrainian prisoners.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
Twenty Russians for one Azovs sounds about right. They are supposed to be "super-warriors" aren't they.
The Daily Satanist
Didn’t CNN say they withdrew, so that they could fight another day?
LOL.
I saw in another article that the head of Russia’s Duma (which I think is roughly equivalent to the USA’s Congress) wants to try the Azovstal group as war criminals.
They must have been in bad shape to surrender, knowing they could meet that fate.
Yep. Not a great outlet.
ha ha. Yeah, ok CNN.
“Will be interesting to see if the Azovstal group is swapped for Russian POW’s or put on trial by Russia instead (or something similar).”
It will vary:
Ukraine regulars with a clean record on war crimes will be returned after the war.
High value foreigners will be traded for something, such as reversal of some of the sanctions.
Azov types (easy to tell, given their Nazi-style tattoos), will be tried and, if lucky, get to spend the rest of their lives in jail.
Foreign mercenaries will also be tried, then executed.
By ‘Heroes’ you mean Nazis, right?
These guys were bused to their current incarceration which is much more humane than what the Soviets did to the Germans who surrendered at Stalingrad.
And the mop-up to exterminate the holdouts who didn’t surrender took weeks.
“They must have been in bad shape to surrender, knowing they could meet that fate.”
Calling them ‘motivated’ to hold out is true - given that they had nothing to lose. Calling them brave or heroes, not so much, as they had little option but to stand and fight, since Russia quickly cut off retreat options.
i want my 40 billion back
Sounds about right
Oh yeah, I’m not a fan of the Azov brigade.
Interesting that the media is NOW calling it a surrender...when they knew it all along.
I think the media decided that they couldn’t maintain the lie when videos came out, which of course they were going to come out. So they ‘softened’ the West to the bad news by making it sound like a retreat/redeployment, but now are calling it what they always knew, a SURRENDER.
That’s good to hear.
I’m not saying I agree with the reporter here. Just putting out the information.
Oh yeah. They were done. It was either surrender or perish.
So do I
Agreed. Always was a surrender.
“i want my 40 billion back”
Sorry—the Big Guy gets his cut first.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.