According to a major commander of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, a “enemy formation with a white flag”; it appeared on the route where residents were being evacuated from the Azovstal steel facility in Mariupol.

Alexander Khodakovsky, the commander of the “Vostok” unit said it was the first “face-to-face contact” established throughout the “full time of the Mariupol siege.” He went on to say that Russian soldiers had welcomed the group.

The Azov Regiment, a veteran volunteer unit with neo-Nazi roots; that has been guarding the broad territory surrounding the plant, however, denied that anyone had surrendered.