Russia-Ukraine crisis live updates | Ukrainian troops surrender in Mariupol steel plant: Russia

Here are the latest developments from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict

Russia said on Tuesday that 265 Ukrainian soldiers, including several dozen wounded troops, surrendered at the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol.

Sweden on Tuesday signed a formal request to join NATO, a day after the country announced it would seek membership in the 30-member military alliance. Finland’s Parliament has also overwhelmingly endorsed a bid from the Nordic country’s government to join NATO.

The moves by the two Nordic countries, ending Sweden’s more than 200 years of military nonalignment and Finland’s nonalignment after World War II, have provoked the ire of the Kremlin.

Read more news on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis here.

Here are the latest updates:

Hundreds of Ukrainian fighters, including wounded men carried out on stretchers, left the vast steel plant in Mariupol where they mounted a dogged last stand and turned themselves over to Russian hands, signalling the beginning of the end of the city’s siege.

Russia on Tuesday called the operation a mass surrender. The Ukrainians avoided using that word — but said the garrison had completed its mission, and that they were working to pull out the fighters that remain.