Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Erdogan said on Wednesday that he intended to personally discuss the extradition situation in Kiev with the Russian president of the commanders of the Ukrainian national battalion “Azov”.
“Until last Friday, these Azov commanders were with us, then we received a request, responded positively and handed over these six Azov commanders back to Kiev. Russia made a number of statements on this topic, but the situation took a turn for the worse after the details became known“, Erdogan said at a press conference on Wednesday after the NATO summit in Vilnius, quoted by Interfax.
“I hope that in August I will have a personal meeting with the Russian president Vladimir Putin. Then we will discuss this issue again,” Erdogan said.
Earlier, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, stated that Russia has already started discussing with Turkey the transfer to Ukraine to representatives of the “Azov” detachment banned in the Russian Federation.
“As for the return of the Azov leaders, yes, this is a violation of the existing agreements. We will discuss this with the Turkish side, as we have already begun to do,” Peskov told reporters.
Zelensky returns from Turkey with “Azovstal” defenders
The five were in Turkey in a swap deal that included Medvedchuk
“It is very important, unlike a number of countries of the so-called collective West, that Turkey maintains a dialogue with us and, moreover, maintains it at a high and high level. We will use these dialogue channels to clarify our position and take given this situation in the following agreements in various areas,” he emphasized.
We remind you that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced last week that he is returning from Turkey together with servicemen who defended Azovstal and, after being released from Russian captivity under an exchange deal, are now in this country.
“We are going home,” Zelensky wrote and posted a photo of himself on a plane with Ukrainian soldiers Denis Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Serhii Volinsky, Oleg Khomenko and Denis Shlega. “They will finally be with their families,” Zelensky added on Telegram.
Podolyak on the return of defenders from “Azovstal”: Russia is no longer a factor
Moscow said it had not been notified
Under the terms of the deal brokered by Turkish President Recep Erdogan, the five Ukrainian commanders were to remain in Turkey until the end of the war “in complete safety and comfort”, but President Zelensky apparently persuaded his Turkish counterpart to allow them to return home. home.
The five soldiers defended “Azovstal” in Mariupol for about two months, and on May 16, 2022, they received an order to save their lives and surrender to the Russian military. About 1,700 military personnel were evacuated around the plant, some of whom are still in Russian captivity.
The five prominent military men were in Turkey under an exchange agreement, and in the exchange deal then Russian President Vladimir Putin included “his godfather” Viktor Medvedchuk. The exchange itself, which was not 1:1, caused serious dissatisfaction in Russia itself.
The return of defenders of “Azovstal” from Turkey to Ukraine once again showed that currently the Russian Federation is no longer such a factor in the international arena. This is how the advisor to the head of the president’s office, Mikhail Podolyak, commented on Moscow’s reaction on Twitter. He added that now Russia will always be placed in a “known place”.
2023-07-12 19:34:27
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