Azovstal’s last defenders

Ukraine’s Azov regiment shares photos of wounded soldiers in plea for evacuation from besieged Mariupol steel plant

Battles for Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant have been going on for nearly two months — Russian troops have been trying to seize this final pocket of Ukrainian resistance since mid-March. Russian President Vladimir Putin called off plans for the Russian military to storm the plant in late April, but Azovstal’s defenders regularly report renewed shelling and assaults. On May 7, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced that “all” civilians had been evacuated from the besieged steel plant. The next day, soldiers from the Azov regiment, which is defending Azovstal, said in a press briefing that they too needed to be evacuated, because they had used up all of the resources they had for waging an “effective defense.” On Tuesday, May 10, the Azov regiment published photos of their wounded soldiers and urged “the entire civilized world” to help with their evacuation. “The world should see the conditions in which the wounded, mutilated defenders of Mariupol are [living] and act,” the accompanying statement said. Meduza shares these photos here.

Photos: Dmytro "Orest" Kozatskyi / Azov Regiment