Ukraine celebrates the go back of the five Azov commanders

Received as heroes with the aid of hundreds of humans, the five Ukrainian commanders of the Azov Regiment arrived this Saturday inside the Ukrainian metropolis of Lviv wherein they had been able to hug their households after greater than ten months (for the reason that September 2022) as prisoners of war in Turkey, wherein they had They had been detained on the grounds that September beneath the terms of a prisoner trade with Russia.

The five, lauded in Ukraine for defending the port metropolis of Mariupol final year for the duration of an 80-day Russian siege earlier than surrendering as prisoners of conflict, acquired a warm welcome and took part in a symbolic act, coinciding this weekend with the 500 days of the start of the Russian invasion.

The guys regarded with the Ukrainian president Volodímir Zelenski, in Turkey for a assembly along with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who greeted them on the Istanbul airport with hugs and smiles, in step with a video launched by his workplace.

“We are coming home from Turkey and bringing our heroes domestic,” Zelensky stated in a message published on his Twitter account.

500 days of complete-scale war.

During this time, heaps and thousands of our humans confirmed the electricity, glory and courage of the Ukrainian human beings in battles for the sake of our kingdom.

Almost 50,000 of our humans were awarded country awards.

298 Ukrainian ladies and men were offered the best name – Hero… %.Twitter.Com/HMWw0yHuSE

— Volodymyr Zelensky (@ZelenskyyUa) July eight, 2023

In a subsequent rite with the men, Zelensky thanked Erdogan for supporting comfortable his launch and vowed to carry domestic all of the ultimate prisoners. “Many human beings inside the international still did now not apprehend what we are, what are you, what to anticipate from us and who our heroes are. Now every body knows,” the Ukrainian president declared to cheers, according to motion pictures shared by way of the workplace of the Ukrainian presidency. The 5 commanders, throughout a press convention, promised to go back to the battlefield. “We will keep to do our process. We are navy. We took an oath,” said Svyatoslav Palama, deputy commander of the regiment.

Kremlin accusations

For its component, the Kremlin changed into short to condemn this repatriation and denounced that this truth violates the settlement reached with Kiev while it launched the combatants, due to the fact they had to live in Turkey “until the stop of the struggle.”

“The go back of the leaders of the Azov (regiment) from Turkey to Ukraine is nothing greater than an instantaneous violation of the terms of the present agreements,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov informed the Russian news organization Ria Novosti.

Peskov also pointed out that they'd now not been knowledgeable approximately the switch of the commanders of the Azov battalion, considered a terrorist company in Russia. Therefore, he accused Ankara and kyiv of getting violated the terms of the settlement on the release of the opponents.

The Kremlin spokesman related this go back to the “failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive” executed considering the start of June and Ankara’s preference to expose its “harmony” ahead of the NATO summit to be held in Vilnius this Tuesday and Wednesday. . “Preparations for the NATO summit are underway and of path there was loads of strain on Turkey,” Peskov stated.

Azovstal commanders, with their households in Lviv

The leaders of the Azov regiment have been in Turkey for the reason that September 2022 under the safety of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who mediated for their release in a prisoner alternate with Russia. Erdogan’s mediation allowed the discharge of 215 Ukrainian soldiers, nearly all captured in Mariupol, in alternate for fifty five Russians and Ukrainians linked to the Kremlin, such as Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch buddy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian forces reduced the city of Mariupol to rubble earlier than conquering it, however Azov warring parties held out for weeks within the town’s Azovstal steelworks, residing in underground bunkers under continuous shelling, which claimed the lives of lots of human beings, which in line with Ukrainian government put it at greater than 20,000. At the request of the kyiv government, they surrendered on May 20. Still, their resistance made them a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance.