The Russian Defense Ministry said today, Thursday, that 1,730 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered since last Monday in the besieged Azovstal steel complex in the coastal city of Mariupol, while Kyiv confirmed its readiness to liberate its lands occupied by Russia by all possible means.
And Ukraine confirmed last week that more than a thousand Ukrainian soldiers, including 600 wounded, are present in this huge complex, which is the last stronghold of resistance to Russian forces in the city devastated by the battles.
The ministry published a video clip showing the surrendering soldiers exiting the factory, some with injuries and others using crutches.
The Russian soldiers were searching their bags when they were leaving.
It noted that the wounded soldiers were taken to a hospital in a Russian-controlled area of eastern Ukraine.
exchange
Ukraine has said it will seek prisoner exchanges including fighters who surrendered in Azovstal, but Moscow has not provided a final answer to that.
"The state is doing everything in its power to save our soldiers," military spokesman Oleksandr Motozynik said at a press conference.
Ukraine and Russia have given conflicting accounts about the number of soldiers who have surrendered to Russian forces.
And the Ukrainian General Staff said - on Wednesday morning - that the Russian army is focusing its efforts "on besieging our units near Azovstal" with artillery shelling and air strikes.
On the streets of Kyiv, residents saluted the "supermen" who fight in this factory;
"They have achieved the impossible," said Andre, 37.
Mariupol is the largest city controlled by Russia so far since the start of the war on Ukraine on February 24.
Full control of Mariupol, located on the Sea of Azov, would be a major advance for Russia, allowing it to connect by land the Crimean peninsula in the south, which Moscow annexed in 2014, with parts of the Donbass region in the east controlled by pro-Lorsia.
A US official, who asked not to be named, said yesterday, Wednesday, that "Russian officials acknowledge that Russian forces are committing dangerous practices in the city, including beating and electrocuting officials in the city while they looted houses, while confirming that they had liberated the Russian-speaking Mariupol."
"Russian officials are concerned that these practices may motivate the residents of Mariupol to resist the Russian occupation even more," he added.
The Ukrainian authorities and foreign bodies are investigating allegations that Russian forces committed war crimes.
The International Criminal Court has sent 42 investigators and experts to Ukraine on its largest field mission.
Ukraine's Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova said at the end of last April that "more than 800" presumed war crimes had been identified in Ukraine.
land liberation
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought to reassure citizens in his daily video message - on Tuesday evening - saying that "the Ukrainian armed forces will liberate our land step by step. How much time will this take? Only the actual situation on the battlefield will answer this question. We are trying to achieve this as quickly as possible." Available time".
The Ukrainian president's adviser said Kyiv was ready to liberate the "completely occupied territories, and our negotiating tools are weapons and sanctions."
He explained that Ukraine is not interested in a new Minsk agreement and the outbreak of another war a few years later, explaining that a ceasefire is impossible without the complete withdrawal of Russian forces.
In this atmosphere, talks between Moscow and Kiev are not making any "progress", the Kremlin confirmed - yesterday, Wednesday - accusing Ukrainian negotiators of a "total lack of will" to reach a political settlement.
Donbass
Russian forces continued their main offensive in an attempt to seize more territory in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian General Staff said - in a statement today, Thursday - that Russia's attacks focused on the Donetsk region.
Russian forces suffered "significant losses" in the vicinity of Sloviansk, north of Donetsk.
The governor of Russia's Kursk region, Roman Starovit, said that Ukrainian forces bombed a border village in the western Russian region at dawn today, Thursday, killing at least one civilian.
Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the eastern Ukraine's Lugansk region, confirmed - via Telegram - that 4 people were killed and 3 wounded in the bombing of the city of Severodonetsk, and urged people to take cover if they decided not to leave.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Aristovich said that Ukrainian fighters blew up a railway track in front of an armored train carrying Russian troops in the occupied city of Melitopol in southern Ukraine.
"The warriors did it, but they did not blow up the armored train itself," he added - in a video clip posted on social media.