Russia said on Monday it had agreed to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers from bunkers under the blockade of the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol to a medical facility in the Russian-controlled city of Novoazovsk.
“An agreement has been reached to evacuate the wounded,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“An open humanitarian corridor through which the wounded Ukrainian servicemen are taken to the Novoazovsk medical institution.”
When Russian troops beat Mariupol for nearly two months, some civilians and Ukrainian fighters sought refuge at the Azovstal plant, a huge Soviet-era plant founded under Joseph Stalin and designed with a maze of bunkers and tunnels to withstand attacks.
Most civilians were evacuated from the plant this month after the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross signed an agreement with Russia and Ukraine.
But Ukrainian fighters remain at the plant. Videos and photos posted on the Internet show that some of the fighters were seriously injured.
On Sunday, brightly burning white munitions were spotted cascading into a metallurgical plant that, according to a British military expert, looked like an attack using phosphorus or other incendiary weapons.
Relatives on Monday appealed to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul to help pull out the defenders.
The wife of a soldier of the Ukrainian battalion “Azov” Natalia Zarytskaya told reporters: “The ring around the” Azov “tightened. We can no longer procrastinate. We have high hopes and believe that the joint efforts of Turkey through its presidents Erdogan and China, through its chairman Xi Jinping and God himself, can save Azovstal and the people on the brink of death.
“They’re in hell. They get new wounds every day. They are without legs and arms, exhausted, without drugs. “
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