The return of the commanders of the Azov regiment from Turkey to Ukraine is a violation of the terms of the existing agreements. This was stated by the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, he is quoted by RIA Novosti.
According to Peskov, the conditions for the return were violated by both Ankara and Kyiv. The press secretary also added that, under the terms of the agreements, the servicemen from Azov were supposed to stay in Turkey until the end of the war (in a conversation with RIA, Peskov called the war in Ukraine a “conflict”)
In addition, Peskov added that no one informed Russia about the transfer of fighters to Ukraine. In his opinion, the decision is directly related to the "failures in the counter-offensive of Ukraine." However, on the eve it was reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were advancing near Orekhov, reporting on successes in the Bakhmut direction and new occupied lines near Kleshcheevka, more about the events at the front in The Insider report .
Earlier, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced the release of five military commanders who defended Azovstal in Mariupol – Denis Prokopenko, Svyatoslav Palamar, Sergei Volynsky, Oleg Khomenko and Denis Shlega. Zelensky published a video in which he and the fighters fly home on a plane. The military personnel were to be under house arrest from September 2022 until the end of the war, in agreement with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, after Zelensky’s talks with Erdogan in Istanbul, the fighters nevertheless returned to Ukraine. Propaganda Z-channels then demanded that the grain deal be cancelled. One of the pro-Russian channels "Rybar" suggested that Erdogan's actions could indeed be connected with the impending withdrawal of Russia from "an extremely beneficial grain deal for him."
In May 2022, 2.5 thousand Ukrainian soldiers defending Azovstal surrendered . On June 7, TASS reported that more than a thousand of them were sent to Russia for investigation. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky expressed the hope that their lives could be saved: “Thanks to the actions of the Ukrainian military Armed Forces of Ukraine, intelligence, as well as the negotiating group, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN, we have hope that we will be able to save the lives of our guys. I want to emphasize that Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle. I think that every adequate person will understand these words.
