Ukraine has called on the UN Security Council and Secretary General Antonio Guterres to make every effort to ensure the evacuation of wounded servicemen from the Azovstal steelworks.

“The defenders of Mariupol have already done the impossible. They stopped the overwhelming Russian troops for more than 3 months. Their contribution to the disruption of the Russian blitzkrieg plans can’t be overestimated”, - said Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Serhiy Kyslytsia.

He noted that many of the Ukrainian defenders remaining at the Azovstal stronghold have sustained grave injuries and have no access to the required medical assistance.

Therefore, Serhiy Kyslytsia concluded, the evacuation operation should be continued.

“We call on the Security Council and the Secretary General to invest further efforts to ensure the evacuation of the sick and wounded from the Azovstal area in accordance with international humanitarian law”, - he added Kyslytsia.

The ambassador stressed that the wounded must be brought to safe places, where their right to life will be guaranteed: “Russian captivity is not such a place for the servicemen from Azovstal”.

He recalled that the death toll among the Mariupol residents over the past months – about 20,000 – is double that caused during World War 2 by German Nazis, who killed 10,000.