They tried to destroy everything: what was found in the dungeons of Azovstal after the departure of Ukrainian militants

Soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and militants of the Azov national battalion set fire to bunkers and tried to destroy ammunition in the dungeons of Azovstal before surrendering.

This became clear during the work on cleaning up the territory of the plant in Mariupol.

The Azovites began to surrender to Russian and DPR forces in mid-May after nearly four weeks of siege.

In total, about 2.5 thousand fighters left the plant.

And on May 21, the day after the surrender ended, the allied forces began combing 12 hectares of the plant.

An RT correspondent visited Azovstal, which remained the last center of resistance for Ukrainian units in Mariupol.

Factory shops and buildings that were on the surface were badly damaged during the fighting and artillery strikes.

And many underground bunkers where the militants were hiding burned out.

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Corridors and spacious rooms with high ceilings were set on fire by the nationalists themselves, said the Russian military, who are involved in cleaning up the territory: semi-melted fuel cans still lie on every corner.

While the militants were hiding underground, they used diesel to refuel stationary generators: these installations provided ventilation for the dungeons.

Judging by what was found in the Azovstal bunkers, the radicals did not experience any serious problems with either food or even weapons.

Provisions were found everywhere in boxes and jars: packs of millet (there are most of them here), beans, peas and other bulk products, spins with eggplants, tomatoes, military dry rations with a shelf life of June 16.

There are also banks with sports nutrition.

Earlier, military experts told RT that the Azov people decided to surrender not because of hunger, but as a result of a well-planned siege.

The commander of the “Vostok” battalion of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DPR, Alexander Khodakovsky, who participated in the siege, noted that the Ukrainian militants decided to surrender when they realized the hopelessness of their situation.

According to him, units of the allied forces surrounded the territory of the plant and constantly pushed the enemy to the center, to the zone of the main workshops, where artillery was regularly hit.

As a result, the militants had to choose between death and captivity.

Porn magazines and Soviet books

There was a bedroom next to the makeshift kitchen: melted bed frames still stand here, the mattresses on them were completely burned out.

The Azov militants even had their own hospital and a separate dressing room in the dungeons: judging by the surviving tablet, dressings here took place from 17:00 to 20:00 seven days a week. 

They also found the atlas "Anatomy of a Human" with paper bookmarks on those pages that were most often used by a local doctor.

Apparently, in most cases he had to deal with injuries to the legs, arms, chest and back. 

An unexpected find among the garbage and pages from porn magazines was an art book, and in Russian.

This is an old edition of The Young Guard.

The bunkers of the plant also contain surviving paper maps of the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions, which were issued back in the Ukrainian SSR in 1981.

Despite the fight against everything connected with the Soviet past, Ukrainian militants did not disdain to use these maps to navigate the terrain.

At the same time, the fighters also had a connection, including the Internet - the military, who are clearing the territory, found satellite dishes.

With their help, the Azovites published, among other things, video messages in which they assured that they continued to “defend” Mariupol.

Dealing with "surprises"

Work on cleaning up the plant is complicated by the fact that the Ukrainian militants left behind a lot of unpleasant "surprises": mines and stretch marks.

So, during the demining of the territory, four sappers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the DPR were injured due to the detonation of ammunition.

Now the forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DPR and the special forces of the Russian army are doing this.

At the end of May, a mined van with the bodies of dead Ukrainian militants was found in the underground facilities of the plant.

“Russian servicemen found an insulated van with a broken cooling system.

152 bodies of dead militants and servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were stored in it, ”said Igor Konashenkov, official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry.

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He added that four mines were laid under the bodies.

The combined mass of explosives in them was sufficient to completely destroy the van with the bodies.

From the interrogations of the captured Azov militants, it became known that the order for mining came from Kyiv.

Konashenkov added that in this way Kyiv wanted to accuse Moscow of deliberately destroying the bodies of the dead.

According to him, the Russian side will hand over the found bodies to Ukraine. 

Mined items are still being found on the vast territory of Azovstal.

So, an RT correspondent was shown an ambulance that had not yet been neutralized.

As the sappers explained, its rear doors are fastened with fishing line, and if you try to open them, then a grenade planted right outside the door can detonate.

The military, who clean up the plant, are extremely cautious about any items found.

You can’t just turn over, for example, a jacket or trousers that are on the floor, or step on them - there can be grenades or mines under the clothes.

“There are rooms in which clothes are scattered everywhere, including the overalls of Azovstal workers,” one of the military involved in the work told RT.

“Before surrendering, the fighters threw off their military uniforms here and changed clothes, trying to pretend to be workers.”

In addition, before surrendering, the militants tried to destroy the military uniform: they burned it and doused it with acid.

Semi-melted helmets and tattered body armor are scattered all over the place, so that they cannot be used by the military allied forces.

So, one of the bulletproof vests, apparently, could not be thoroughly damaged, so the fighter simply cut the rubber bands with scissors that pull the bulletproof vest on the body.

Manicure scissors, by the way, lay next to the damaged uniform.

Destroyed evidence

Ukrainian fighters also tried to get rid of weapons, in which, judging by the remnants, they also did not experience a large shortage.

Machine guns, machine guns, boxes of cartridges (including from sniper rifles), grenades, shots from hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers were found in the basements.

In one of the rooms they even found unused Shmel infantry flamethrowers.

The military, who are clearing the territory, believe that the militants were still able to destroy some of the weapons - drown them in wells that are filled with water.

The corridors leading to such tanks contain most of the weapons - apparently, they were dragged to the wells.

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Bags with gas masks remained undestroyed.

According to the military of the DPR, these means of protection were here even before the arrival of Ukrainian militants.

The cleansing of the territory is necessary, among other things, for the investigation of criminal cases on war crimes of the Azov militants.

Any thing or information carrier that they did not have time to destroy can be used during a military tribunal over the accused nationalists.

At the end of spring, the head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, said that law enforcement officers had prepared the necessary materials for the first tribunal against militants from Azovstal.

Since enough evidence has already been collected, the first stage of the trial of war criminals is just around the corner, he added.