Azovsal defenders held in “satisfactory” conditions - commander’s wife

Ukrainian soldiers captured by Russian forces after the three-month siege of the Azovstal steel plant are being held in “satisfactory” conditions.

That’s according to the unit commander Denys Prokopenko’s wife, Kateryna who received a brief call from her husband, The Guardian reports.

The wife said Prokopenko had also been told that the prisoners had not been subjected to violence. It was not immediately clear if Prokopenko had been able to speak freely during the conversation.

“He said he was ‘OK’ and asked how I was,” Kateryna Prokopenko told the Guardian on Tuesday. “I’ve heard from other sources that the conditions are more or less satisfactory.”

“They are being fed, given water. The conditions meet the requirements and they have not been subjected to violence during this short period,” said Kateryna Prokopenko. “What will happen next, of course, we don’t know but at the moment there are third parties – the UN and the Red Cross – who are controlling the situation.”

Most of the injured Azov fighters are being held in a prison in Olenivka, a village in Russian-occupied Donetsk region, but a smaller group of severely injured fighters are in a hospital in the town of Novoazovsk, also Russian-occupied.

Kateryna Prokopenko said that to her knowledge none of the fighters have been taken to Russia.

Photo: PAP/EPA