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On 12 April 2022, more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers from the 36th Marine Infantry Brigade of the AFU (Ukrainian Armed Forces) surrendered to the armed forces of Russia and the DPR (Donetsk People's Republic) in Mariupol after their unsuccessful attempt to break the encirclement of the Ilyich factory where they were located.

On the night of 11-12 April 2022, a group of about 100 Ukrainian soldiers from the 36th brigade, who were trapped in the Ilyich factory, tried to break through the encirclement in armored vehicles to escape from Mariupol to the north.

The attempt was a failure. More than half of the Ukrainian soldiers were killed, 42 were taken prisoner, and three tanks, five infantry fighting vehicles and seven other vehicles were destroyed. The task of this group was to clear the road so that the rest of the unit could evacuate the town.

As a result of this failure, 1,160 Ukrainian soldiers of the 36th brigade (including 176 officers and 47 women), who were in the Ilyich factory in Mariupol, surrendered to the Russian and DPR armed forces. The following night, another 134 Ukrainian soldiers, including 14 officers, who were still in Mariupol also surrendered.

See the videos (in Russian) filmed by the DPR Ministry of Interior:

Together with the hundred or so Ukrainian soldiers who had surrendered earlier, a total of more than 1,500 men were taken prisoner by the Russian and DPR armed forces in Mariupol.

Information from the surrendered Ukrainian soldiers indicates that they were ordered by their command to make this breakthrough with the promise that reinforcements would come to meet them at the village of Zatchatovka (near Volnovakha). This village has been under DPR control for several weeks! Clearly, the command of the 36th brigade of the AFU lied to its soldiers, deliberately sending them to the scrap heap.

If the armed forces of Russia and the DPR behaved like some of those fighting on the Ukrainian side (who torture and execute the Russian soldiers they capture), this order to break the encirclement of Mariupol would have been a single ticket to death for those Ukrainian soldiers.

But they are lucky that Russian and DPR soldiers behave more humanely. The prisoners interviewed confirmed that they were treated well, and those who needed medical attention were treated.

The day after this massive surrender, we were able to return to Mariupol, and among other things to the city centre, near the dramatic theatre, which we were able to enter.

See the report filmed in Marioupol :

Following the surrender of the Ukrainian soldiers of the 36th brigade, all that remained in Mariupol were the soldiers of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment and the other fighters who were with them, entrenched in the Azovstal factory.

Contrary to what Alexei Arestovitch, Volodymyr Zelensky's adviser, wrote, the soldiers of the 36th brigade had not succeeded at all in breaking the encirclement, nor in joining the soldiers of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment in Azovstal. The latter are now completely alone and surrounded, with no hope of escape.

While we were in the dramatic theatre of Mariupol, the exchange of fire in the Azovstal area, which is only 2 km away, was clearly audible.

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