Head of the DPR Denis Pushilin . File photoMOSCOW, May 18.The fate of Ukrainian militants who were blocked at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol and surrendered will be decided in court, said the head of the Donetsk People's Republic Denis Pushilin. «As for war criminals, as well as those who are nationalists, their fate, if «they laid down their arms, the court must decide. No matter how they play, some, I know there are different opinions, emotions, if the enemy laid down his arms, then his future fate is decided by the court, if he is a Nazi criminal, then this is a tribunal,» Pushilin Donetskoe quotes news agency. «At the moment, this is a question of the next stage. The tribunal must be international,» the agency cites the answer of the head of the DPR to the question of who will judge the Ukrainian militants — Russia, the DPR or the LPR. Earlier, the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said that since May 16, 959 militants, including 80 wounded, of the Ukrainian national regiment «Azov» have surrendered, blocked at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol.
Pushilin allowed the import of goods from three regions of Ukraine At the time of the proclamation of the DPR in 2014, Mariupol, with a population of about 450 thousand people, was the second city of the republic after Donetsk, but in June of the same year, Ukrainian security forces regained control of Mariupol. On March 7, 12 days after the start of the Russian special operation to demilitarize Ukraine, the deputy commander of the Vostok battalion, Alexander Semenov, said that the city was surrounded, a cleansing of its individual areas had begun, on April 16, the official representative of the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said that from the Ukrainian army, foreign mercenaries and neo-Nazis from the Azov regiment (against whose militants a criminal case has been initiated in Russia), the entire city territory was cleared. The remnants of the Ukrainian group were blocked at the Azovstal plant. According to the RF Ministry of Defense, 959 militants from Azovstal have surrendered since Monday, including 80 wounded, of which 51 have been taken to the Novoazovsk hospital in the DPR. .jpg» />DNR forces destroyed 36 Ukrainian soldiers in a dayRussia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. Russian President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, as of March 25, the Russian Armed Forces had completed the main tasks of the first stage of the special operation — they significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
