Five members of the regiment returned home from Turkey to a heroes’ welcome on Saturday. The Kremlin accused Ankara of violating the terms of the deal that freed them.
Five Ukrainian commanders of the Azov Regiment, extolled in Ukraine for defending the port city of Mariupol last year during an 80-day Russian siege before they surrendered as prisoners of war, have been given a heroes’ welcome after returning home.
The men appeared with President Volodymyr Zelensky before crowds late Saturday in the western city of Lviv after returning to Ukraine from Turkey, where they had been held since September under the terms of a prisoner exchange with Russia. Denys Prokopenko, one of the commanders who was returned, said that the freed fighters would rejoin the front lines, according to a video posted on Twitter by local news media.
“We will definitely have our say in battle,” Mr. Prokopenko, the regiment’s commander told reporters in Lviv. Asked whether he would fight on the front lines, 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 agreement to keep the men on its territory until the end of the war in Ukraine. There was no immediate comment from the Turkish authorities. The government in Kyiv did not offer a public explanation of how or why the fighters came to be returned to Ukraine.
Mr. Peskov claimed that the decision was tied to what he said was Ukraine’s failure in a counteroffensive that began last month. Ukraine has claimed it is making small but steady gains in its grueling campaign to reclaim territory in the south and east of the country.
