Five Ukrainian commanders of the Azov Regiment, extolled in Ukraine for defending the port metropolis of Mariupol final yr throughout an 80-day Russian siege earlier than they surrendered as prisoners of battle, have been given a heroes’ welcome after returning house.
The males appeared with President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier than crowds late Saturday within the western metropolis of Lviv after returning to Ukraine from Turkey, the place that they had been held since September underneath the phrases of a prisoner alternate with Russia. Denys Prokopenko, one of many commanders who was returned, mentioned that the freed fighters would rejoin the entrance strains, based on a video posted on Twitter by native news media.
“We will definitely have our say in battle,” Mr. Prokopenko informed reporters in Lviv. Asked whether or not he would combat on the entrance strains, he replied, “That is why we returned to Ukraine.”
Moscow reacted angrily to the news that the Azov fighters had returned to Ukraine. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, accused Turkey of breaking an settlement to maintain the lads on its territory till the top of the battle. There was no instant remark from the Turkish authorities. The authorities in Kyiv didn’t provide a public rationalization for the way or why the fighters got here to be returned house.
Mr. Peskov claimed that the choice was tied to what he mentioned was Ukraine’s failure in a counteroffensive that started final month.
Ukraine claims it’s making small however regular features in its grueling marketing campaign to reclaim territory within the south and east of the nation. But Mr. Peskov mentioned that Turkey had been put underneath strain by fellow NATO members to permit the Ukrainians to return house to distract consideration from the faltering effort to regain territory. He supplied no proof for his claims.
Russian forces diminished Mariupol to rubble earlier than capturing it, however the Azov fighters then held out for weeks within the metropolis’s large Azovstal metal works, residing in underground bunkers underneath relentless bombardment.
They surrendered on May 20 underneath orders from the federal government in Kyiv. Still, their resistance made them an emblem of the nation’s army defiance and plenty of Ukrainians noticed their return as an pressing nationwide precedence. Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly pledged to safe the discharge of all Ukrainian prisoners of battle.
The Azov fighters are reviled in Russia, and the Kremlin propaganda machine has lengthy sought to make use of the far-right origins of their regiment as proof of its false declare that the Ukrainian state has been infested with Nazism.
The males had been in Turkey underneath a deal introduced in September, underneath which 215 Ukrainian prisoners of battle had been launched in alternate for the discharge of Viktor Medvedchuk, a rich Ukrainian businessman and shut buddy of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and 54 different Russian prisoners of battle. It was not clear what number of members of the Azov battalion stay imprisoned.
Mr. Zelensky visited Ankara on Friday and Saturday for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey forward of a significant NATO summit in Lithuania that begins Tuesday, at which Ukraine’s fledgling utility for membership of the alliance shall be excessive on the agenda. Turkey has opposed Russia’s invasion, and Mr. Erdogan has expressed help for Ukraine’s utility for membership in NATO, however he has additionally sought to take care of an in depth relationship with Mr. Putin.
Ukraine’s bid has been a thorny problem for the alliance, with some members urgent for quicker motion than others. In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria aired on Sunday, President Biden mentioned that it was “premature” to start the method to permit Ukraine to affix whereas combating continued.
Ukrainian officers mentioned on Sunday that no choice had been made about whether or not Mr. Zelensky would attend the summit in individual, though NATO’s secretary basic, Jens Stoltenberg, mentioned on Friday that Mr. Zelensky would take part within the first assembly of a brand new NATO-Ukraine Council.
The Azov fighters returned house on the five hundredth day since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Many Ukrainians view that date each as a second to replicate on the demise and destruction that the nation has confronted, but additionally as the beginning of a brand new section of heroic resistance to Moscow.
Here’s what else to know:
-
In a recorded interview with ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Zelensky mentioned that Mr. Putin can be “forced to seek dialogue with the civilized world” if Ukraine’s counteroffensive efficiently superior to the occupied Crimean peninsula. But he reiterated that he wouldn’t comply with any peace deal that palms territory over to Russia.
-
Mr. Zelensky acknowledged within the ABC interview that he wished the counteroffensive had been transferring quicker. In an replace on Sunday night, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported heavy combating in japanese Ukraine, together with across the ruined metropolis of Bakhmut, the place Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Ukraine’s floor forces, mentioned in a Telegram submit that Kyiv’s troops had been making progress.
-
President Andrzej Duda of Poland met with Mr. Zelensky on Sunday throughout a go to to the western Ukrainian metropolis of Lutsk, the place they attended a church service to mark the anniversary of massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists throughout World War II. Poland, one other NATO member, is considered one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters.
-
The demise toll from Russian shelling of Lyman, a metropolis within the Donetsk area, on Saturday rose to 9, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Ukrainian regional governor, wrote on Telegram. Another civilian was additionally killed on Saturday within the city of Avdiivka, he mentioned.
-
Ukraine appeared to verify that its forces had been behind an explosion in October that destroyed a part of the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, one of the crucial spectacular strikes in opposition to Moscow’s pursuits because the full-scale invasion started.
While Ukrainians celebrated the assault on the bridge as a humiliation for Mr. Putin, who had taken private pleasure in its development, the federal government in Kyiv had not formally claimed it. But on Saturday, Ukraine’s deputy protection minister Hanna Malyar listed the explosion as one of many nation’s achievements within the 500 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion started. Responding to the submit, Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, mentioned the federal government in Kyiv was a “terrorist regime.”
Paul Sonne contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com