The court will decide the fate of the Ukrainian fighters that surrendered at the Azovstal steel plant, the local media outlet cited the Donetsk separatist leader Denis Pushilin as saying on Wednesday.
"As for war criminals as well as those who are nationalists, their fate, if they laid down their arms, should be decided by the courts," he said. "If the enemy has laid down arms, then his fate will be decided by the courts. If it is a Nazi criminal, then it's a tribunal."
He also added that top-ranking Ukrainian commanders at Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks are still inside the plant and have yet to surrender.
DAN news agency quoted Pushilin as saying that the hundreds of fighters who had given themselves up did not include any commanders of the highest level. "They have not left (the plant)" as of now, he said.
"That is - so far," Pushilin, who along with Russian forces controls Mariupol, was quoted as saying by the Donetsk News Agency, known as DAN.
It was unclear what would happen to the fighters who were cast by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as heroic resistance fighters but who Russian lawmakers said were "Nazi criminals" who should face the gravest punishment, even death.
Moscow says the Azov Regiment, which began as an extreme-right nationalist paramilitary organisation, is a group of radically anti-Russian nationalist fighters and casts them as modern-day Nazi sympathisers.
The regiment, formed in 2014 as a militia to fight Russian-backed separatists, denies being fascist, racist or neo-Nazi, and Ukraine says it has been reformed away from its radical nationalist origins to be integrated into the National Guard.
President Vladimir Putin said what he calls a special military operation was necessary in Ukraine to prevent the persecution of Russian speakers and to prevent the United States using Ukraine to threaten Russia.
Ukraine says Putin is trying to steal the country and denies that Kyiv persecuted Russian speakers.
The Kremlin said the combatants would be treated in line with international norms. Ukraine has said there will be a prisoner of war exchange.
Civilians who sheltered in the bunkers spoke of desperate conditions in the bunkers. Some of the fighters endured horrific battle injuries.
KYIV AND MOSCOW SUSPEND PEACE TALKS AMID MARIUPOL PRISONER SWAP ROW 
