MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. The International Committee of the Red Cross has found that the Ukrainian soldiers who agreed to lay down weapons and leave the territory of the Azovstal metal plant in Mariupol are kept in satisfactory conditions, the Donetsk People’s Republic’s leader, Denis Pushilin said on Thursday.
"The Red Cross wished to see the conditions in which those who had left the Azovstal plant under the white flag and laid down weapons are being kept. If the conditions match the international conventions. Towards the evening the inspection was over and there followed more groups of those who do not wish to sacrifice their lives for the sake of nobody knows what," he said on the Solovyov Live channel.
Pushilin confirmed that the ICRC officials were satisfied by what they had seen.
"Yes, of course," he said, when asked if the process of surrender from Azovstal would resume after the ICRC found the POWs’ conditions satisfactory.
"Many of those in our custody, who have laid down weapons, feel surprised. They had thought they were doomed to be shot, killed and so on. They had been told they would certainly be torn to pieces. Now they enjoy medical assistance. Some begin to realize: it turns out they were held there deliberately," Pushilin said.
He stressed he had no knowledge if the ICRC had conducted a similar inspection of POWs’ conditions in Ukraine.
"I believe it would be right to demand that the prisoners of war who are kept in Ukraine should enjoy the same kind of treatment," Pushilin said, adding that over the eight years of contacts with the ICRC he had repeatedly experienced double standards.
"We have repeatedly stressed this. But it would be possibly wrong to say that all of the ICRC’s efforts have been to no avail," he concluded.
The battle of Mariupol began on February 25, the next day after Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine. When the Ukrainian forces had to quit the residential areas, the remaining armed groups, including the militants of the neo-Nazi detachment Azov were hiding in the Azovstal metal plant for some time. On Wednesday, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that a total of 959 men, including 80 injured, have surrendered since May 16. Fifty one were taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk, the Donetsk People’s Republic.