Two Commanders Of Ukraine's Azov Battalion Tossed Into Lefortovo Prison, Where Nazi Generals And U.S. Intel Intelligences Have Been Detained

Lefortovo Prison Moscow, Russia. (Wikimedia Commons/A.Savin)

JAKARTA - Two senior officers of the Azov Battalion who fought with Ukraine and surrendered in Mariupol, were taken to a detention center in Moscow, Russia for investigation.

Law enforcement sources said the two were among several commanders of the Ukrainian Azov nationalist battalion who surrendered from the Azovstal Steel Plant, Mariupol after weeks of fighting and siege.

"Currently, several of the Azov commanders, who were held captive during the fighting in Mariupol, have been taken to Lefortovo," the source told TASS but did not reveal their names, as quoted June 20.

According to previous reports, Svyatoslav Palamar (nickname Kalina), deputy battalion commander Azov, and Sergei Volynsky (nickname Volyna), commander of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces, who surrendered in Mariupol, were transferred to Russia for investigative purposes.

More than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, who surrendered in Mariupol, have been transferred to Russia for investigative activities. A source in law enforcement agencies told TASS that more than 100 soldiers held captive in the work of Azovstal Mariupol, including foreign mercenaries, may be detained in Moscow.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 2,439 Ukrainian soldiers and members of the Azov battalion surrendered their weapons on May 16, after a siege on Azovstal's workplace for about a month. On May 20, Russian troops liberated the entire territory of the factory.

Summarized from various sources, Lefertovo prison was used to detain a number of well-known figures, such as the Nazi general Helmuth Otto Ludwig Weidling, the last commander of the Berlin Defense Area, before the Nazi surrender in World War II. There is also Paul Nicholas Whelan, a figure accused by Russia of being a US spy who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.