Ukraine is doing their best to save the remaining fighters trapped in Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks, a senior official has said.
On Monday, 264 fighters many badly wounded were evacuated to areas held by Russian-backed rebels. On Tuesday, another seven buses were seen leaving the site, Reuters said.
Russian prosecutors said they would question all the Ukrainian soldiers as part of an investigation into what Moscow termed as “Ukrainian regime crimes against Donbas civilians”.
Ukraine wants its troops the last defenders of the southern port city to be exchanged for captured Russian soldiers as part of an evacuation deal confirmed by Moscow.
Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers – Marines, the National Guard, border guards, police and territorial defence units as well as a number of civilians with young children have been holed up at the site since proceeding Russian troops encircled Mariupol in early March.
On Tuesday a briefing in Kyiv, Ms Maliar said only that “we know this number” when asked about how many Ukrainian fighters were still at the Azovstal site.
“We understand the scope of the rescue operation, but it is also sensitive information, and it will not be disclosed until the rescue operation is completed,” Ms Maliar added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian military, intelligence and negotiating teams, as well as the Red Cross and the UN, were involved in the evacuation operation. “Ukraine needs its heroes alive,” he said.
However, he cautioned that the Ukrainian troops might not be freed immediately and warned that negotiations over their release would require “delicacy and time”.
Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko told the BBC it was essential that the deal struck with Russia, with the help of the Red Cross and the UN, went through and the soldiers were exchanged. Otherwise, she said, “the fate of these very brave men will be absolutely unknown and will be in Russian hands, which is far from an ideal situation”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukrainian soldiers evacuated from the steel plant would be treated “in line with the relevant international laws”.
Meanwhile, the office of Russia’s prosecutor general has asked the country’s Supreme Court to declare the unit a “terrorist organisation” in an apparent attempt to prevent its fighters being treated as conventional prisoners of war.
In development stories, both Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday admitted that peace talks were currently on hold, blaming each other for this.