The mechanism for the exchange of defenders of Mariupol evacuated from the Azovstal metallurgical plant is not ready yet.
The first deputy head of the Patrol Police Department Oleksii Biloshytskyi announced this on Facebook, Ukrainian News Agency reports.
"The exchange mechanism is not ready yet. We want to deliver our heroes to a third country (Turkey, for example), but Russia is against it," he wrote.
Biloshytskyi noted that the evacuation mission continues and is controlled by Ukrainian intelligence officers and international mediators.
According to the first deputy head of the Patrol Police Department, 264 defenders, including 51 seriously wounded, were evacuated from Azovstal.
They were taken to a colony in Olenivka, controlled by the invaders.
Biloshytskyi added that the Russian occupiers plan to interrogate the evacuated Ukrainian military in order to establish their identities and check them for involvement in crimes against the civilian population.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 959 people left Azovstal.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, after the Ukrainian servicemen were evacuated from the Azovstal plant, they were taken to a former penal colony, which is located in the occupied village of Olenivka in Donetsk region.
The leader of the "DPR" terrorist grouping Denys Pushylin spoke in favor of the trial of the defenders of Mariupol, calling them "Nazi criminals."
52 wounded defenders were taken from the territory of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk said that the exchange will take place after the condition of the wounded improves.
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