Surrendered Ukrainian soldier describing how he managed to escape Azovstal factory

Translation: "Tell us please, Azovstal, why they don't let you surrender? Who are sitting there and why they don't let you surrender?" "I also could not escape from there because first, you need to know factory, ways out of it. Second one should not get caught by guards or step on mine or trap. If they would have caught me, they would immediately have interrogated me and they can shoot you on the spot for desertion. They are been recruited on ideological grounds..." "You mean Azov members?" "Yes." "Guards are Azov?" "Yes Azov and also ours (ordinary National Guard) were helping them to guard factory. Same today. They are simply directing everything, controlling it all." "Do you know about soldiers that were executed for trying to surrender?" "I have only heard about it, but did not see it." "From whom did you hear about it?" "From our guys, those I was with. Men told me. But I don't know, I did not see it myself." "So you were afraid to escape?" "Yes. I found opportunity when they brought me to the new position, away from city in the residential area. Over here in residential area and they introduced me to him [pointing at the dead commander]. He have arrived on a helicopter at night of 5th-6th from Dnipro (Dnipropetrovsk). One other volunteer was with him. He himself was former naval infantryman, he said he is naval infantryman. Later he joined Azov. 3 men have arrived on a helicopter including him. I was driven out of Azovstal to the position over there, I have slept for 1.5 hours and was introduced to commander by Graf, that's Azov fighter. And he told us what to do. They gave us rations for 4 men, two Azov fighters, me from National Guard and one volunteer who was serving earlier in airforce but then volunteered to come here. Here we stayed for two days. We had battles. He was wounded, another one was wounded and I said that... in short I am thankful to him that he did not shoot me in to the back. I gave him my night vision googles, that is his night vision googles and told him that I am going. He asked where?" "To surrender?" "No, I did not tell him I am going to surrender. I said that I am going to change clothes. He believed me at first but then said no, I will rather send you to guard command point. I said fine and I have left and run away." #ukraine #russia #america #usa #nato #bucha #mariupol #donetsk #crimea #war #warcrime #conflict #soldier #volodymyr #zelenskyy #vladimir #putin #kyiv #kiev #moscow #neonazi #azov #allied #chech #surrendered #escape