A bus with surrendered Ukrainian servicemen and militants of the Azov nationalist battalion. File photoPARIS, May 28. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation to release 2,500 fighters from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol who had surrendered, the Champs Elysees reported Palace. On Saturday, Putin had a telephone conversation with Macron and Scholz. According to the Kremlin, the parties exchanged views on topical aspects of the situation in Ukraine.The Ukrainian military, leaving Azovstal, left many booby traps «The President of the Republic and the German Chancellor called for the release of about 2,500 Azovstal defenders captured by Russian troops,» the Elysee Palace said in a communiqué. liberation of the territory of the Mariupol metallurgical plant «Azovstal» — the underground facilities of the enterprise, in which the Ukrainian military and militants of the Azov regiment were hiding (against whom criminal cases were initiated in the Russian Federation), came under the control of the Russian Armed Forces. In total, according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, since May 16, more than 2.4 thousand Nazis from the Azov Regiment and the Ukrainian military have laid down their arms and surrendered.
Russian human rights activists call to recognize «Azov» terrorist Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and , on March 25, completed the main tasks of the first stage — significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass.
