Sept 21 (Reuters) – Russia has released 215 Ukrainian citizens it took prisoner after a bloody battle for control of the port city of Mariupol earlier this year, including senior military leaders, a senior official in kyiv said on Wednesday.
The released prisoners include the commander and deputy commander of the Azov battalion who took part in much of the fighting for the port, said Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The decision came as a surprise, as Russian-backed separatists said last month there would be a trial against the Azov officials, whom Moscow describes as Nazis. Ukraine denies the Russian accusations.
In a statement, Yermak said that among the released prisoners were the Azov commander, Lt. Col. Denys Prokopenko, and his lieutenant, Svyatoslav Palamar.
Serhiy Volynsky, commander of the 36th Marine Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was also released.
The three men helped lead a stubborn weeks-long resistance from bunkers and tunnels beneath Mariupol’s giant steel factory, before being forced to surrender in May along with hundreds of Azov fighters to Russian-backed forces.
Yermak said that, in return, kyiv had freed 55 Russian prisoners, as well as Viktor Medvedchuk, the leader of a pro-Russian outlawed party facing treason charges.
Public broadcaster Suspline said the swap had taken place near the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.
Hours earlier, Saudi Arabia said Russia had released 10 foreign prisoners of war captured in Ukraine after mediation by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Last month, the head of the Russian-backed separatist administration in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region said a trial of the captured Azov officers would be held in late summer.
The Azov unit, formed in 2014 as a militia to fight Russian-backed separatists, denies it is fascist and Ukraine says it has been reformed from its radical nationalist origins. (Reporting by David Ljunggren. Editing in Spanish by Marion Giraldo)
Source: Ambito
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