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The Russian Defense Ministry announced – on Monday – that the Ukrainian and Russian forces agreed to evacuate the injured fighters from the Azovstal Steel Factory – besieged in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol – after days of negotiations, and this comes while the Ukrainian forces defending Kharkiv managed to reach the border Russian.
The ministry said – in a statement in Moscow – that the ceasefire has become effective, and that a humanitarian corridor will be established to allow the injured fighters to leave the steel plant.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the evacuation process will take place through safe corridors to the hospitals of the Novoazov region of the Donetsk region, to provide them with treatment, as she put it.
The ministry added – in its statement – that the Ukrainian fighters will receive medical care in the city of Novoazovsk, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
It is noteworthy that the Kyiv government has repeatedly demanded that those injured be transferred from its forces either to the territory controlled by Ukraine or to a third country.
And pro-Russian separatists said earlier on Monday that the first batch of Ukrainian fighters had surrendered and left the steel plant waving white flags. However, the Ukrainian side later denied this, but did not confirm after Moscow’s announcement that an agreement had been reached in this regard.
Attention and anticipation
The issue of the trapped Ukrainian fighters at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol continues to be of interest to Ukrainians, both at the official and popular levels.
The families of the besieged, estimated at about two thousand fighters, are awaiting any breakthrough that will lead to the release of their sons.
While the Russian forces announce that they guarantee a safe exit for those who surrender their weapons, the leaders of the besieged soldiers say that the Russian army killed some fighters after they surrendered.
In other field developments, the mayor of Kharkiv, Oleh Sengopov, said that the Ukrainian forces defending the city managed to reach the Russian border.
Sengupov added that their forces regained control of areas in the province, after the withdrawal of Russian forces beyond the Russian-Ukrainian international border.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense broadcast a recording of Ukrainian soldiers in front of a sign of the international border.
Explosion and destruction
In eastern Ukraine, the command of the special operations forces of the Ukrainian army said that the army destroyed the communication routes in the areas controlled by the Russian forces between the cities of Robyzhny and Severodonetsk.
The leadership published pictures that it said were of the bombing of railway bridges that were controlled by Russia, and that the goal of the bombing was to prevent these forces from attacking Lyschansk and Severodonetsk.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the killing of 360 Ukrainian soldiers on Sunday. Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov stated that their forces destroyed 5 weapons depots and 2 fuel depots.
