Kiev (dpa -Afx) – In the joy in Ukraine about the return of 1,000 prisoners from Russia in a large exchange, criticism also mixes. Among the returnees is not a soldier of the 12th ASOW brigade, criticized the ASOW commander Denys Prokopenko on Facebook.
He spoke of a “shame for the country”. The ASOW fighters had defended the steel mill in Mariupol until May 2022 and then went to captivity. After more than three years, they had “the absolute right to be exchanged primarily,” argued the influential commander.
The former volunteer group ASOW, founded in 2014, has developed into one of the most combat Ukrainian units. It now forms the core of a new large association, the 1st Corps of the National Guard Asow, under the leadership of Prokopko.
Secret serviceers and priests as exchange objects?
The Colonel criticized the Ukrainian negotiation tactic. If Moscow does not release the ASOW people against simple Russian soldiers, Kiev needed other exchange objects, he wrote. He called Russian secret serviceers or priests of the former Moskaut Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine completed a three -day exchange with the release of a total of 1,000 prisoners on Sunday. The writer Stanislaw Asjejew criticized that no civilians from the Donbass were released, some of whom have been under the violence of the moscial loyal authorities for eight years. Asjejew himself was locked up in a torture prison in Donetsk and was released in 2019./fko/dp/he