Ukrainian fighters hope to evacuate the 100 adults and 20 children still trapped in the Azovstal steel plant, located near the southern city of Mariupol.
In an interview with Reuters Monday, Deputy Commander of the Azov regiment Sviataslav Palamar described the mixed feelings he experienced when civilians were safely evacuated from the steel works on Sunday after weeks of being trapped there.
Palamar said he felt “joy through tears” seeing the civilians leave the steelworks, stressing that during the time they were trapped “thousands of people have died.”
“I do hope they will be another round of evacuations and they will be able to take out those civilians who are still here in this plant. We are talking about 20 children. That’s what we’ve counted — and 100 civilians, women, elderly people,” Palamar said.
The Ukrainian authorities had plans to rescue people trapped under the rubble on Monday but were unable to do to so due to non-stop artillery fire from Russian soldiers, Palamar said.
“There are people in the rubble. We hear them talking but we’re not able to do anything,” the deputy commander emphasized.
He said the work “would have been 90% easier if we would have been given special equipment” and would have “saved lives of servicemen.”
Palamar also highlighted the plight of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who he said is shouldering the “great responsibility” of the Azovstal evacuations as the “commander-in-chief.”
