Mariupol siege set to end as Kyiv orders its troops to surrender

KYIV/NOVOAZOVSK • The Ukrainian military said yesterday it aimed to evacuate its remaining soldiers from their last stronghold in Mariupol, as fighters that have held out for 82 days began to surrender, heralding the end of Europe's bloodiest battle in decades.

Reuters saw buses leave the huge Azovstal steel works overnight and five of them arrive in the Russian-held town of Novoazovsk.

In one, marked with the Latin letter Z that has become the symbol of Russia's assault, wounded men were lying on stretchers three bunks high. One man was wheeled out, his head tightly wrapped in thick bandages.

Video footage released by the Russian Ministry of Defence showed fighters leaving the plant, some being carried on stretchers, others with their hands up to be searched by Russian troops.

Russia said 256 Ukrainian fighters had "laid down their arms and surrendered", including 51 who were severely wounded.

Ukraine said 264 soldiers, including 53 wounded, had left the metal plant, and efforts were under way to evacuate others still inside.

"The 'Mariupol' garrison has fulfilled its combat mission," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in a statement. "The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel... Defenders of Mariupol are the heroes of our time."

The surrender appears to mark the end of the battle of Mariupol, where Ukraine believes tens of thousands of people were killed under months of Russian bombardment and siege.

The city now lies in ruins.

Its complete capture is Russia's biggest victory of the war, giving Moscow total control of the coast of the Sea of Azov and an unbroken stretch of eastern and southern Ukraine about the size of Greece.

But it comes as Russia's campaign has faltered elsewhere, with its troops around the city of Kharkiv in the north-east lately retreating at the fastest pace since they were driven out of the north and the area around Kyiv at the end of March.

The authorities on both sides gave few clues about the ultimate fate of Mariupol's last defenders, with Ukrainian officials discussing the prospect of some form of exchange for Russian prisoners but giving no details.

"We hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an early morning address. "There are severely wounded ones among them. They're receiving care. Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive."

Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said 53 injured troops from the steel works had been taken to a hospital in Russian-controlled Novoazovsk, some 32km to the east. Another 211 people were taken to the town of Olenivka, also in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Mariupol is the biggest city Russia has captured since its Feb 24 invasion, giving Moscow a clear-cut victory for the first time in months, during which its campaign in Ukraine has mostly faced military disaster against an underestimated foe.

The United Nations and Red Cross say thousands of civilians died under Russia's siege of the once prosperous port of 400,000, with the true toll uncounted but certain to be Europe's worst since wars in Chechnya and the Balkans in the 1990s.

For months, Mariupol's residents were forced to cower in cellars under perpetual bombardment, with no access to food, fresh water or heat, and bodies littering the streets above.

REUTERS