Not clear if people went to “join”. They might have risked the journey to get their elderly relatives out or at least provide them with food.
Same difference. They were treated as combatants and shot at.
The only upside is, any people in Zaporizhzhia city who might have gone over to the new regime now won’t, if they know how they’ll be treated by the occupiers and if they have even a modicum of common sense.