Photo: BGNES/EPA
Turkey violated agreements by freeing the detained commanders of the militants who for weeks defended the Azovstal steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, quoted by Reuters and the Associated Press.
After the meeting between the presidents of Turkey and Ukraine – Recep Erdogan and Volodymyr Zelensky, a huge scandal is looming between Ankara and Moscow.
The Kremlin spokesman said Russia had not been informed of their release. Moscow’s insult is due to the fact that on September 22, 2022, Erdogan officially promised that the five commanders of Ukrainian formations captured in Mariupol in mid-May will remain in Turkey until the end of hostilities.
President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Ukraine from Turkey today and brought with him five commanders of the former Mariupol garrison, saying he was “bringing our heroes home”.
“Ukrainian soldiers Denis Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Serhiy Volinsky, Oleg Khomenko, Denis Shlekha. They will finally be with their loved ones,” he added in Telegram.
“Russia Today” notes that they were sent to Turkey with the personal guarantee of President Erdogan.
Now that agreement has been broken, and the pro-Kremlin media is outraged by Ankara’s perfidy. But along with this, there is also criticism of the Kremlin as to why the Azovs in Russian prisons were exchanged for the oligarch Medvedchuk, and not for captured Russian officers. And the question arises why Medvedchuk was so important for Moscow, and the fighters were not.
The commanders, hailed as heroes in Ukraine, led last year’s defense of the port city – the largest city to be captured by Russia in its invasion. Some of them were members of the “Azov” battalion, which Russia defines as neo-Nazi, AP recalls.
Thousands of civilians died in Mariupol as Russian forces ravaged the city during the three-month siege. Ukrainian defenders held out in tunnels and bunkers under the Azovstal steel plant until Kiev finally ordered them to surrender in May last year, Reuters recalls. Moscow released some of them in September in a prisoner swap brokered by Ankara.
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2023-07-08 19:28:00
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