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A Ukrainian fighter holed up in Mariupol’s Azovstal plant has taken to social media, calling on billionaire Elon Musk for help with evacuating.
“@elonmusk people say you come from another planet to teach people to believe in the impossible. Our planets are next to each other, as I live where it is nearly impossible to survive,” tweeted Serhiy Volina.
“Help us get out of Azovstal to a mediating country. If not you, then who? Give me a hint,” he wrote.
The marine commander also posted his appeal on Instagram, saying that addressing the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder is a “forced cry of [his] soul.”
While hundreds of civilians already evacuated from the plant following a brief agreement with Russia, no such deal has been made for the fighters of the Azov Regiment.
Many of them are wounded and the unit has also called on the United Nations (UN) and Red Cross for assistance.
In a statement posted on a Telegram channel titled “Azov — Mariupol,” they said Tuesday that the injured were living in unsanitary conditions “with open wounds bandaged with non-sterile remnants of bandages, without the necessary medication and even food.”
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The statement – posted with pictures – said that “the whole civilized world must see the conditions in which the wounded, crippled defenders of Mariupol are and act.”
“We demand the immediate evacuation of wounded servicemen to Ukrainian-controlled territories, where they will be assisted and provided with proper care,” they said.
There are reportedly about 1,000 fighters in Azovstal’s many underground tunnels.
Smoke rises above the Mariupol Azovstal Iron and Steel Works factory on April 21, 2022.
(REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko)
Ukrainian and Russian officials had said the last remaining women, children and the elderly were evacuated from the plant earlier in the week, but confusion remained as to whether all civilians had been evacuated after two Ukrainian officials estimated Tuesday that some remained.
The seaside mill is the only part of the port city that has not been taken by Russian forces.
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The U.N. says that thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in Mariupol since the beginning of the war, but that the “true scale” of atrocities has yet to be fully uncovered.
Fox News’ Caitlin McFall, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
