The deputy commander of Azov Battalion, captain Sviatoslav Palamar, recorded a video appeal regarding the evacuation of civilians and the military station from the city of Mariupol.
He underlined that the situation in the city is hard and even an emergency in some places. The russian troops do not stop their attempts to take by storm Azovstal steelwork. The enemy tries to battle through with tanks, armored vehicles, foot troops, shelling, and missile blows. The defenders of the city keep bravely defending it. Palamar mentioned that soldiers, having committed crimes in the Kyiv region, participate in the storm of Azovstal plant.
The civilians who are hiding from russian shelling at Azovstal have no chance to leave their cellars. They are afraid of the shelling that is taking place, though the statements of russian servicemen about the cessation of fire.
“Of course, it is impossible to leave the territory of Azovstal steelworks. That is why I am asking about observing the safety guarantees. And only in this case, with the support of a third party, the civilians could leave the plant. We are asking to let them leave and we have been asking about proper conditions for that since the first day of the war,” underlined Palamar.
He told that he had talked with Mykhaylo Podoliak and Davyd Arakhamiia who had said about their readiness to come to Mariupol for negotiations with russians regarding the evacuation of the military station that is still there.
“We are ready for evacuation from the city with small arms in order to rescue the personnel we are responsible for, in order to evacuate the wounded people and the corpses of killed people for burying them with honest… We would like to call for the whole civilized world to join the safety guarantees… We don’t come to terms with giving up a weapon and yielding ourselves prisoners,” added the deputy commander of Azov.
As it was reported, Mariupol has been blockaded since the first days of the war. All this time the occupiers not only blockaded the city but also prevented the centralized evacuation. One could get out of the city only by private vehicle. And that was not possible every day. The latest humanitarian corridor didn’t work the way it was expected. There is no information at the moment on how many people succeeded to leave.
As of the moment, russians have factually destroyed Mariupol’s Azovstal plant with bombs completely but there are still civilians there, in the cellar. The Azov military men are guarding them.
Earlier, the commander of the 36th marine battalion, that is now defending Mariupol together with Azov, major Serhii Volyna wrote a letter to Pope Francis, addressing the pontifex to help with the evacuation of the city dwellers and “to rescue them from the hands of the devil”.