Ukrainian commanders who were captured by Russia after leading the defense of Mariupol from the Azovstal steel plant have vowed to return to the battle field following a prisoner swap.
The commanders announced their intentions at a press conference held shortly after arriving in Lviv, Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday.
They had previously been in Turkey as part of the prisoner swap.
After a lengthy siege, the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol fell under complete Russian control in 2022 with the surrender of Azovstal, the city’s last bastion of Ukrainian defense. The Russian military has claimed that over 2,000 Ukrainian service members surrendered there.
At a press briefing, some of the fighters spoke about their experiences in Turkey and shared their expectations of the future.
Denys Prokopenko, a commander of Azov regiment, said: “The most important thing for today is that the Ukrainian army has seized the strategic initiative on the front line and is moving forward every day.”
Prokopenko said returning to the front line was the reason he and others had returned to Ukraine.
Video footage showed large crowds that gathered in Lviv to greet the leaders.
Azov deputy commander Svyatoslav Palamar described his experience in Turkey using a poem by famed Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka.
“We are paraplegics with sparkling eyes, with a strong soul and a weak will. Eagle wings are growing behind our backs but we were shackled to the Turkish soil,” he said, adding that Zelensky and his team found the key “to take their shackles off.”
“We will continue to do our job. We are military men. We took an oath,” Palamar added.
Zelensky thanked his team and President Erdogan in particular for helping to bring the Azovstal leaders home.
The Ukrainian president also announced his appointment of Oleksandr Pivnenko as new commander of the National Guard.
Zelensky described him as “a powerful soldier… and combat officer who distinguished himself in the battles against Russian invaders, in particular, in the battles for Bakhmut” in his address to the Ukraine’s National Guard later on Saturday.
