Russia claims steel plant ‘surrender’ while Ukraine says ‘mission accomplished’

Russian servicemen frisk Ukrainian servicemen as they are being evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine (Russian Defence Ministry/AP)

Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters, including wounded men carried out on stretchers, left the vast steel plant in Mariupol where they mounted a dogged last stand and turned themselves over to Russian hands, signalling the beginning of the end of a siege that became a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Moscow’s invasion.

Russia on Tuesday called the operation a mass surrender.