Ukrainian forces began evacuating soldiers from their last stronghold in the besieged port city of Mariupol on May 16, likely signaling the end of the Russia–Ukraine conflict that ran for 82 days, and marking a significant defeat for Ukraine.
Roughly 600 members of the Azov battalion were estimated to be inside the Soviet-era Azovstal steel plant in the eastern portion of the country for weeks, including dozens of wounded, many of them without enough supplies of food and water.
