The commander of the Ukrainian regiment Azov, Denis Prokopenko, addressed the public and said that in Azov they were ordered to stop defending Mariupol and save the lives of the fighters.

"The civilians were evacuated, and the seriously injured were given the necessary assistance, so they were evacuated and later exchanged and arrived in the territory controlled by Ukraine," the Ukrainian commander explained.

Prokopenko said that the process of retrieving the bodies of the fighters who died defending Azovstal was still ongoing and that he hoped that "in the near future, the relatives of the victims and the state of Ukraine will be able to bury their soldiers honestly."

"We have always emphasized that the most important for us are the civilians, the wounded and the dead," Prokopenko said in a video shared by Regiment Azov on the Telegram messaging service.