Mariupol siege heroes to be tortured and executed by ruthless Russians, it is feared
FEARS are mounting that busloads of heroes from the Mariupol steelworks siege are to be executed or tortured.
Nearly 1,000 exhausted and wounded Ukrainian servicemen and women were believed to be heading for a hellhole penal colony at Russian-held Olenvika in the east of the country.
UN and Red Cross officials who helped to broker the end of the 82-day siege were last night battling to force the Russians not to renege on their prisoner-swap promise.
Sources described Olenvika as a “21st century concentration camp” where the wives of soldiers and former government workers have been starved and tortured.
Other Mariupol fighters face being sent to the even worse Izolyatsia Prison in Donetsk.
Teams of Russia’s dreaded FSB torturers were feared to be preparing to greet their Ukrainian enemies there with mock executions and sexual violence.
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Russian-backed rebel forces said 962 Ukrainian soldiers have now been taken out of the plant.
But Vladimir Putin's cronies in the Russian parliament and his brutal Chechen warlord allies yesterday called for “Nazi” member of the Azov group to face the death penalty at war crimes trials.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Russian parliament, raged: “Nazi criminals should not be exchanged. They are war criminals and we must do everything to bring them to justice.”
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