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Ukraine steelworks troops surrender as Russian soldier says sorry

Ukraine steelworks troops surrender as Russian soldier says sorry

Ukraine's dogged resistance has earned the West's admiration. (Photo: AFP/Sergei Chuzavkov)

KYIV: Russia said on Thursday (May 19) that 1,730 Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered this week at Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant, showing some emerging on crutches after a desperate battle that has become emblematic of the nearly three-month-old war.

The number included 80 who were wounded and taken to a hospital in Russia-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine, the defence ministry in Moscow said.

The ministry released a video appearing to show exhausted Ukrainian soldiers trudging out of the sprawling steelworks, after a weeks-long siege forced the defenders and civilians to huddle in tunnels with dire shortages of food, water and medicine.

Russian troops patted down those surrendering and inspected their bags as they exited, signalling the effective end of what Ukraine's government had called a "heroic" resistance.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had registered "hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war" from the plant in Mariupol, a port city obliterated by Russian shelling.

Ukraine is hoping to exchange the Azovstal soldiers for Russian prisoners. But pro-Kremlin authorities in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region said some of them could be put on trial.

Ukrainian prosecutors have so far listed 12,595 alleged war crimes by the invaders, including the bombing of a maternity ward in Mariupol, and opened the first trial of a Russian soldier Wednesday.

'PLEASE FORGIVE ME'

Vadim Shishimarin pleaded guilty to a war crime in shooting dead Oleksandr Shelipov, an unarmed 62-year-old man, in northeastern Ukraine on Feb 28 - four days into the invasion.

The 21-year-old sergeant, who faces a life sentence, was remorseful as he took the dock for a second day Thursday, as two other Russian soldiers went on trial elsewhere in Ukraine.

"I know that you will not be able to forgive me, but nevertheless I ask you for forgiveness," Shishimarin said, addressing Shelipov's widow in the cramped courtroom in Kyiv.

While Mariupol has fallen, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the wider invasion was an "absolute failure" as he marked "Vyshyvanka Day", an annual celebration of Ukrainian folk traditions.

Wearing an embroidered shirt instead of his usual military khaki top, Zelenskyy said on the Telegram social media platform that his people remained "strong, unbreakable, brave and free".

"I have no doubt we will seize our independence" but at the cost of "tens of thousands of lives", he told Ukrainian university heads and students.

Zelenskyy's defiance, and his army's dogged resistance, have earned the West's admiration and a steady flow of military support.

The US Congress approved a US$40-billion aid package for Ukraine Thursday as Washington ramped up support for Kyiv.

Germany said it would contribute €1 billion to shore up Ukrainian government coffers as G7 finance ministers met to coordinate action.

But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Ukraine would have "no shortcuts" to membership of the European Union. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned the "second-class treatment" of his country.

FAMINE WARNING

Russia's actions are already redrawing the security map of Europe.

US President Joe Biden hosted the leaders of Finland and Sweden to discuss their bids to join NATO, after the Nordic nations decided to abandon decades of military non-alignment.

"They meet every NATO requirement and then some," Biden told reporters with the Nordic leaders at his side, offering them "complete backing".

However, NATO member Turkey is "determined" to block the applications, its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, calling Sweden in particular a "complete terror haven".

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance was "addressing the concerns that Turkey has expressed".

Beyond Europe, the invasion also threatens to bring famine, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

"Malnutrition, mass hunger and famine" could follow "in a crisis that could last for years", Guterres warned, urging Russia to release grain exports from occupied Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine produce 30 per cent of the global wheat supply, and the war has already sent food prices surging around the world.

CIVILIANS UNDER FIRE

Despite their last-ditch resistance in places such as Mariupol, and the successful defence of Kyiv, Ukrainian forces are retreating in the east.

The losses often come after weeks of battles over urban hubs that are pulverised by artillery fire by the time the Russians surround them.

Ukraine's defence ministry said Thursday that Russia was intensifying its attacks in the eastern Donbas region and preventing civilians from fleeing to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

In Severodonetsk, 12 people were killed and another 40 wounded when Russian forces "randomly" shelled the eastern city, the regional governor said.

In the Kharkiv region, one man was killed and five others injured Thursday, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram.

Later Thursday, the governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Telegram five civilians were killed and six others were wounded in Russian attacks in the eastern region.

Severodonetsk resident Nella Kashkina sat in her basement next to an oil lamp and prayed.

"I do not know how long we can last," the 65-year-old said.

"We have no medicine left and a lot of sick people - sick women - need medicine. There is simply no medicine left at all."

Source: AFP/ec

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