There are at least 2,000 civilians in Azovstal. This was stated in an interview with LB.ua by the founder of the “Azov” Regiment Andriy Biletsky. However, the exact number of people is unknown, because all those who had been fleeing the shelling were allowed into the plant, and people are hiding in bunkers and capital structures, which are unrelated to each other.
“New bunkers are constantly being found. Sometimes only after a building was hit, and wounded and killed were found in it, it turns out that there were civilians there,” Biletsky said.
He noted that there is chaos with civilians at the plant.
"They are trying to count them to distribute food and water, medicines, but it is extremely difficult to do. It is known that there are at least 200 children and 400 women. But only those, who are in the same bunkers as the military or next to them, are clearly counted. It is impossible to count the absolute majority, so the number of children and women can actually be many times higher ... But at least two thousand people are in Azovstal,” said the founder of Azov.
Also, according to Biletsky, there were about 100,000 people in Mariupol, but "a significant part of them died".
"Including internally displaced people from Donetsk and the occupied territories, almost 600,000 people lived before the war in Mariupol. It is estimated that at least 300,000 people left Mariupol. Tens of thousands of people were sent to russian concentration camps or deported to russia, beyond the Urals. No one can count, but there are definitely more than 100,000 civilians in the city. Of course, some of these people died, some are under the rubble, into which the whole city has been turned. I think, several tens of thousands of civilians could be killed," Biletsky said.
"Until the rescue services stopped working, more than 3,000 civilians were found. At that time, Mariupol was not controlled by the russians, and it was estimated that between 5 and 10% of the housing stock was destroyed. Now it is destroyed by 90%. We can just multiply that number - and we get tens of thousands. "
According to Biletsky, about 10% of all russian military personnel are in Mariupol now. Last night, 35 air strikes were carried out on the Azovstal plant.