Five commanders of the Azov brigade, formerly a regiment, have returned to Ukraine, the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky reports.
“We are coming back home from Turkey, bringing our heroes with us. Ukrainian servicemen Denys Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Serhiy Volynsky, Oleh Khomenko, and Denys Shleha are with me here. They will finally be reunited with their families,” Zelensky wrote.
On 22 September 2022, Ukraine swapped Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian politician and a personal friend of Vladimir Putin, alongside 55 other individuals, for 215 Ukrainian captives.
Of those 215, 108 were Azov fighters, including Prokopenko, Palamar, and Volynsky. Dmytro Kazatsky, a photographer and an Azov fighter, was also among the liberated individuals.
11:00 9 June
The returned Azov commanders are planning on participating in hostilities again, Denys Prokopenko said while speaking to journalists in Lviv.
“We’ll have our say in battle,” Prokopenko, one of the commanders, stated. “This is what we came for,” he added.
The swap’s condition was that the five men were supposed to stay in Turkey “under Recep Erdoğan’s protection” until the end of hostilities.
