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Reuters
Reuters
Politics
Philip Pullella

'Please don't let them die' wives of Azov fighters beg pope

Wives of Ukrainian Azov soldiers currently trapped inside the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol attend the weekly general audience held by Pope Francis at the Vatican, May 11, 2022. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane

The wives of two of the last remaining Ukrainian fighters holed up in Mariupol's steelworks asked Pope Francis on Wednesday to help get soldiers to a third country, with one telling him: "please don't let them die".

Kateryna Prokopenko, 27, and Yuliya Fedosiuk, 29, spoke to the pope for about five minutes at the end of his general audience in St. Peter's Square, also asking him to intervene directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin to let them go because "Russian captivity is not an option".

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