The Russian side has rejected Turkey's proposals to evacuate the defenders of Mariupol, Donetsk region, who are located at the Azovstal plant. This was announced by Ukrainian politician, one of the leaders of the Crimean Tatar national movement Mustafa Dzhemilev, writes Ukrinform on Thursday, May 12.
Dzhemilev said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan twice spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the release of Mariupol residents. Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin held talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
"He told him: "We have a ship with a capacity of two thousand people in our port in Istanbul. At any moment when we agree with you, it will come to the port of Berdiansk, on this ship there will be buses that will bring them from Mariupol to Berdiansk, because the port of Mariupol is mined, they will go to Berdiansk, accompanied by Turkish observers, and we, the Turkish side, undertake that until the end of the war they will be guests of the Republic of Turkey, that is, until the end of the war, they will not fight," Dzhemilev conveyed Kalin's words.
To this, Shoigu replied that the Russian Federation agrees to release only the civilian population, and the servicemen must surrender. The speaker replied that not a single commander-in-chief in the world has the right to tell his fighters about surrender, and offered to exchange all Russian prisoners of war for the defenders of Mariupol, but this did not give results.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on May 12, the Azov Regiment published a video of the assault on Russian positions by the defenders of Mariupol.
Also on May 12, it became known that Ukraine is ready to transfer to Russia all captured Russian military in return for seriously wounded servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who are holding the defense on the territory of the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol.
On May 10, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Russia is blocking all proposed options for the evacuation of the Ukrainian military from Azovstal.
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