The Russian Defense Ministry announced yesterday that 265 Ukrainian soldiers, including dozens of wounded, have surrendered at the Azovstal steel plant, the last Ukrainian resistance enclave in the city of Mariupol.
“Over the past day, 265 militants laid down their arms and surrendered, including 51 were seriously injured,” the agency said in a statement.
She explained that “everyone in need of medical care was taken to the Novoazovsk hospital” in the territories controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
On Monday, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Gana Malyar announced the evacuation of 264 Ukrainian fighters, including 53 wounded, from the Azovstal plant to cities in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian forces and pro-Moscow separatists. But she stressed that these militants would later return to the territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities “as part of the exchange process.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message on Monday that the main thing is to “save the lives of our men.”
And last week, Ukrainian authorities announced that more than a thousand Ukrainian fighters, including 600 wounded, according to one of their commanders, are still hiding in tunnel corridors under a huge industrial complex that has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.
On the other hand, observers say that most of those killed by the Russian army, who died in the thousands during the invasion of Ukraine, are young people from poor families, and many of them belong to ethnic minorities.
Against the background of observers’ confidence that Russian losses could now exceed the losses of 15,000 Soviet soldiers during the occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, the losses among ordinary soldiers are simply enormous.
Russia has been reserved about the number of its soldiers killed: On March 2, it reported a total of 498 killed, and on March 25, it updated the figures to announce 1,351 deaths. After that, no information was received.
Ukraine estimates the death toll of the Russian army at 27,000, and although most Western sources consider this number to be high, its figures are much higher than Russian estimates.
The UK Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that “Russia has likely lost a third of its ground combat forces declared in February,” hinting that as many as 50,000 Russian soldiers may have been killed or wounded.
And in a rare gesture of its kind that indicates the extent of the losses, Putin honored the soldiers who died during the invasion, without naming their number, during celebrations to mark May 9 Victory Day.
The invasion of Soviet troops in Afghanistan caused a national shock, as the writer, Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Aleksievich told in the book Zinc Boys, which got its name from the coffins in which the bodies of young soldiers were returned. This shock contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
From a political standpoint, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said yesterday that the entry of Sweden and Finland into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would “strengthen” the European Union.
The two countries are expected to formally apply to join NATO at any time in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia fired missiles at Israeli planes
Israeli Channel 13 news reported that Russian forces fired advanced S-300 anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli aircraft as they returned from an attack on Iranian militia facilities in northwestern Syria last week, which could indicate a major shift in Moscow’s stance on Israel.
The report said the unprecedented incident took place last Friday evening when the Israeli Air Force bombed several targets near the city of Masyaf in northwestern Syria.
The report said “Syrian S-300 batteries opened fire as the Israeli planes were leaving the area,” noting that the system was operated by the Russian army and could not be launched without its consent.
He added that “the radar failed to (obscure) the Israeli aircraft and therefore does not pose a serious threat to Israeli Air Force combat aircraft.”
