Top Ukrainian commanders from Azovstal have not surrendered

Top-ranking Ukrainian commanders have not yet surrendered from the labyrinth of bunkers and tunnels below the Azovstal steel works in Mariupol, the leader of the Russian-backed separatist region of Donetsk said on Wednesday.   

As the most devastating siege in Russia’s invasion moves towards a finale, nearly 1,000 Ukrainian fighters who barricaded themselves into the tunnels have so far given themselves up to Russian and pro-Russian forces since Monday.   

Russia’s defence ministry said that in the past day 694 Ukrainian fighters - including members of the Azov regiment - had surrendered, including 29 wounded.   

It was unclear if the top commanders would leave the plant, or possibly even fight a last mortal battle with the Russian forces they regard as occupiers of their motherland.   

“There are no commanders of the highest level (among those who surrendered) - they have not left,” said Denis Pushilin, head of the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic which was officially recognised by President Vladimir Putin just three days before the invasion of Ukraine.Moscow says the Azov Regiment, which began as an extreme-right nationalist paramilitary organisation, is a group of radically anti-Russian nationalist fighters and casts them as modern-day Nazi sympathisers.   

The regiment, formed in 2014 as a militia to fight Russian-backed separatists, denies being fascist, racist or neo-Nazi, and Ukraine says it has been reformed away from its radical nationalist origins to be integrated into the National Guard.   
LONDON, 18 May 2022 (Reuters) -