"Talks about exchange are premature": Russia wants to sentence fighters from Azovstal
Olena Roshchina - Wednesday, 25 May 2022, 11:18
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has said that talks about the possible exchange of Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol for Russian soldiers are premature.
Source: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, quoted by "RIA Novosti"
Quote from Rudenko: "We will consider all things after those who have surrendered are convicted accordingly and a sentence handed down. Then there may be some other steps. Before that, all talks about an exchange are premature."
Details: Thus, the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry commented on the possibility of exchanging Vadim Shishimarin, condemned in Ukraine for the killing of a civilian in the Sumy region to life imprisonment .
At the same time, writers for the Kremlin-aligned "RIA Novosti" write only about the exchange of servicemen of the "Azov" National Guard Regiment of Ukraine (Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine), whom they call nationalist militants, while other Ukrainian defenders also came out of the dungeons of the Azovstal steelworks: marines, border guards, and police.
Background:
- Mariupol was blockaded by Russian troops on 1 March. Since the end of April, the defenders of Mariupol - representatives of the Azov National Guard regiment, marines, border guards, and police - have been blockaded in the Azovstal steelworks.
- Civilians were evacuated from Azovstal in early May, and on 16 May, the Russians said they had agreed with Ukrainian defenders to evacuate wounded soldiers to the occupied territories. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine gave an order to save lives
- On 20 May, The Russian Ministry of Defence stated that all Azovstal fighters had been evacuated and amount to 2,439 people whom the Russians consider prisoners of war.
- Denys Prokopenko, the commander of the "Azov" National Guard Regiment of Ukraine, reported that the severely wounded fighters from the Azovstal plant will be taken to territory controlled by Ukraine through an exchange, while of those defenders who had died, he hoped that their relatives would be able to bury them in the near future.
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that the defenders of Mariupol must be released in an exchange and returned home. Russia allows the exchange of prisoners, but some occupiers want a "tribunal" for them.
