OREANDA-NEWS. Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov on Monday, May 16, during the traditional briefing with journalists, explained Vladimir Putin's order on Azovstal.

Recall that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu to cancel the assault on Azovstal. He also asked Shoigu to offer to surrender to the militants, promising life and medical care to the wounded.

The Kremlin spokesman assured that such a decision was made for humanitarian reasons.

“Of course, the order was given on the basis of humanitarian considerations, President Putin himself spoke about this,” Peskov said.

Earlier it became known that Ukrainian nationalists came out of Azovstal with a white flag.

The commander of the Vostok battalion of the Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Khodakovsky, spoke on his Telegram channel about a group of Ukrainian nationalists who left the territory of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol with a white flag.

“The first ten military men with white flags came out of ‘our’ tunnel,” he wrote.

And he added: “We are still crushing them.”

There has been no official confirmation of this information from the Ministry of Defense yet.