Since April 18, Azov has released several videos targeting civilians who say they are trapped in the factory, mostly showing women and children. “I want everyone who sees this video to help us create this green corridor, to help us get out of here,” said a mother holding her toddler in a video released on April 24, when Ukraine celebrated Easter Orthodox. “Safe. Alive. The civilians and the soldiers.”
Although Azov is a party to the conflict, The Times has previously verified footage released by the group. In the recently shared videos, Azov soldiers hand out treats to children and talk to adults. The relationship between the soldiers and the people who appear in front of the camera, and the circumstances under which these images were taken, are unclear.
Graphic photos shared on social media accounts related to the regiment on April 26 showed wounded people lying on stretchers on a concrete floor, in what was said to be a field hospital in the steel mill.
Two days later, Azov uploaded a video to his social media channels of what he believes was the aftermath of Russian attacks on a field hospital in Azovstal. The footage showed about two dozen people, some in plaster and bandages, sitting in a dim, hazy room. A man with a headlight is seen digging through the rubble. Another holds a plastic bottle in his trembling hand and sobbs.
“The attack was made in the area where the seriously injured are lying,” Mikhail Vershinin, chief of Donetsk regional patrol police, said in a voice memo from the factory. “People are buried under the rubble, some have died. There are wounded – wounded on top of the wounds they already had.”
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
Russian oil embargo. European Union countries are likely to approve a phased embargo on Russian oil, sealing a long-delayed measure that has divided members of the bloc and emphasized their reliance on Russian energy resources. The ambassadors expect to give their final approval by the end of this week, EU officials said.
The Azov Regiment was originally formed in May 2014 as the Azov Battalion, named after the water where Mariupol and the now-destroyed harbor are located, to defend the city when it was attacked by pro-Moscow forces. At the time, it was known for its nationalist, far-right members, who have been used by the Kremlin to justify its military campaign as “anti-fascist” ends.
The group’s controversial reputation lingers, and while it still has some nationalist members, analysts say the unit, now called the Azov regiment, has evolved since it was incorporated into the regular armed forces of the Ukrainian military.
Some troops have been at the factory since March 1, Captain Palamar told DailyExpertNews.
Maria Zolkina, a Ukrainian political analyst who works at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, said the regiment’s leadership made a joint decision to make their pleas for evacuation and extraction public because they felt they had no alternatives.
