The Kremlin announced, on Saturday, that the Turkish authorities had violated the prisoner exchange agreements by releasing Ukrainian fighters.
According to the agency “Reuters”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitribeskov said that Turkey had violated the prisoner exchange agreements after it released the detained commanders of a military unit that had defended for weeks a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
RIA news agency quoted Peskov as saying that under the terms of the prisoner exchange agreements, the fighters were to remain in Turkey until the end of the war. He added that Turkey did not inform Russia of their release.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, returning home from a visit to Turkey, was accompanied by five former Ukrainian contingent commanders in Mariupol who were forced to live in Turkey under the terms of a prisoner exchange last year.
The leaders, who are described as heroes in Ukraine, were at the forefront of efforts last year to defend the port city of Mariupol, the largest city captured by Russia during the invasion. Thousands of civilians were killed inside Mariupol when Russian forces reduced the city to rubble during a three-month siege.
Kiev finally ordered the Ukrainian defenders, who had been holding out in tunnels and shelters beneath a steel plant, to surrender in May last year. Moscow released some of them in September in a prisoner exchange brokered by Ankara, whose terms oblige these leaders to stay in Turkey until the end of the war.
“We will return home from Turkey and bring our heroes home,” said Zelensky, who met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday in Istanbul for talks.
“Ukrainian soldiers Denis Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Serhiy Volynsky, Ole Khomenkou and Denis Schliha. They will finally be with their relatives,” he added on the Telegram messaging app.
Zelensky did not say why the leaders were allowed to go home now. The Turkish Communications Department has not yet responded to a request for comment.
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2023-07-08 18:33:26
