The Mariupol Azovstal Wounded Exchanged For Captured Russians
Day 83 ~ An evacuation of wounded soldiers took place overnight
Day 83 (17 May)
The evacuation of some of the wounded soldiers trapped in the Azovstal steel works took place late last night. Some (53) were taken to Novoazovsk for treatment and others(211) to Olenivka—both are Russian occupied regions.
From the video footage it didn’t look as if there was an urgency to help the wounded. Russia has stated they will be treated in line as per the international laws of prisoners, but it is unlikely they will receive the level of treatment they would get in Ukraine or Poland. The chances are that they are technically prisoners of war that are wounded, and it is unknown what will happen to them once they recover.
Full details of the evacuation and the negotiations have not been revealed as they continue as there are still soldiers trapped inside the steelworks. Ukraine has declared that their mission is complete and that they do not need to defend the steelworks any longer.
The Ukrainians had little choice—they did not have the means to go in and extract the troops and could not replenish supplies. The aim, Zelenskyy said was to bring them out alive. The UN and the ICRC have assisted, but it was a weak deal that has taken weeks, and Ukraine has given back some captured Russians in exchange.
Mikhail Khodaryonok, a retired colonel of the Russian army has been allowed to participate in a discussion where he criticized the Russian troops and gave a realistic overview of the situation on Russian state television. This included his stating that the world appears to be against Russia (true, the democratic world is), and with other countries assisting Ukraine, Russia is likely to fail. Allowing this to be aired on television might be a way to blame the war on NATO and mainly the US.
Ukraine and Poland will set up the Klymenti Sheptytsky Foundation to help women who had been captive in Russia and also orphans.
In response to the alleged Russian war crimes, the US are looking to draft a bill to enable them to try war crimes. This is too idealistic as the ICC already struggles to prosecute and there are jurisdiction issues. They have initiated a new program—The Conflict Observatory will record and analyse evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, then will try and document, and verify the open-source evidence as a means to halt the Russian disinformation and to help the ICC investigations.
Missiles have struck Sumy, Chernihiv and Lviv rail lines again. This is to disrupt the transport system and infrastructure.
Talks between Ukraine and Russia are on hold, with Both sides blaming each other. The main issues are that Russia did not agree to the humanitarian corridors, and Russia is pretending they aren’t concerned about Finland and Sweden joining NATO.
Turkey have confirmed they will not support Sweden or Finland’s application for membership to NATO. It seems that Erdogan wants something in return from NATO for his support and is using this as a blackmail tactic.
Zelenskyy has addressed an audience at the Cannes Film Festival.
Macron had a long chat with Zelenskyy today and promised weapons and support, but would not support the EU membership in so many words, pushing his new outer political group idea instead.
Russia has left the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) due to ‘hostile’ actions (sanctions) by other states, and accused the EU and NATO of turning the CBSS into an instrument of anti-Russian policy’. Other members of the CBSS include; Poland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, and Lithuania,
The ICC currently has a team of 42 investigating the alleged war crimes in Ukraine carried out by the Russians. They are being assisted by other teams from France, the UK, and the Netherlands.
Germany has said it will increase their military cooperation with Finland and Sweden, but that doesn’t automatically mean that they will offer a security agreement. It seems more of a, ‘We’ll help if you need it and we’ll see what we can do.’
Back to the Finns, and Moscow has stated that two Finnish embassy staff must leave Russia, in response to two Russians being asked to leave Helsinki.
The Visegrad Four, in particular the Czech Foreign Minister (Jan Lipavsky) has critiqued Hungary, where Orban has rejected sanctions against Russia. The alliance has been weakened by Hungary failing to share the common goals and interests that bind the four countries (Poland and Slovakia), and the future looks uncertain with all three countries taking a different position on issues than Hungary.
There are reports that Russians are killing their own men if they are injured so that they are not a burden. Claims are made that some Russian soldiers are killing themselves so that they do not have to carry out atrocities as ordered by their commanders. No one knows the truth, but accounts for why the Russians have left their dead soldiers on the street.
If the reports are accurate that Russians are showing no compassion for their own suffering injured comrades, just think of how these merciless soldiers are mistreating Ukrainian citizens.