Zelensky withdraws Mariupol defenders from Turkey, Russia reacts furiously | Abroad

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has several senior officers who took part in the defense of the Azovstal steel plant in the port city of Mariupol brought back to Ukraine from Turkey. “Home,” Zelensky captioned a photo on his Telegram channel. The photo shows the Ukrainian president in the plane together with, among others, three commanders of the infamous ultra-nationalist Azov battalion.

Zelensky was in Istanbul on Friday night for a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The officers were after the capture of Azovstal captured by the Russians, but were subsequently extradited to Turkey. They have now been returned to their homeland “after negotiations with the Turkish side,” the Ukrainian presidential administration’s website said.

Shortly after the start of Russia’s offensive war against Ukraine, the port city of Mariupol became the epicenter of fierce fighting. The fighting around the besieged city by Russian troops lasted for months. By the end, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, including fighters from the Azov battalion, had holed up in Azovstal. It was not until May 2022 that the last defenders surrendered.

Russia actually wanted to bring the Ukrainian fighters to justice. Moscow repeatedly used the Azov battalion as a justification for its invasion of Ukraine and for its claim that the country needed to be “liberated” from a “fascist” regime. Several however, commanders of the Azov battalion were extradited to Turkey. According to Russia, they were only released on the condition that they would remain there until the end of the war.

It Kremlin has reacted furiously that that agreement has been violated. “The return of the Azov commanders from Turkey to Ukraine is nothing but a direct violation of the terms of existing agreements,” Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying. According to him, both Ukraine and Turkey have flouted the conditions. He links the return of the commanders also to “the failure of the counter-offensive” which Ukraine has been engaged in since the beginning of June.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said today that the cluster munitions which Kiev will receive, will only be used to liberate occupied territories. He swears that the ammunition will not be deployed on Russian soil.

“Our position is simple – we must liberate our temporarily occupied territories and save the lives of our people,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

The minister goes on to say that the army would not use cluster munitions in urban areas and would only use it “to break through the enemy’s defenses.” In addition, Ukraine will strictly record the use of the ammunitionsaid Reznikov. That information would also be shared with international partners. Based on the registers, the right areas can be prioritized for post-conflict demining.

Cluster munitions are banned by more than a hundred countries. However, this ban does not apply in Russia, Ukraine and the US. This type of ammunition usually releases large numbers of smaller explosives that can kill over a wide area. The explosives that fail to detonate pose a threat for decades to come.

That the United States will supply cluster munitions to Ukraine in the war against Russia is a sign of weakness. At least that is what the Russian Ministry of Defense thinks. The US will be “compliant” in the civilian deaths caused by the use of such controversial munitions, it said.

“The delivery of cluster munitions is a gesture of desperation and a sign of weakness against the background of the failure of the so-called Ukrainian counter-offensive,” the Russian ministry said.

Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev was even sharper on Saturday. He accuses the US of wanting to provoke a nuclear war by supplying cluster munitions. “Maybe the dying grandpa plagued by sick fantasies (meaning US President Joe Biden, ed.) just decided to resign in a nice way, provoke a nuclear armageddon and drag half of humanity with him to death. the deputy chairman of Russia’s National Security Council wrote on Telegram. According to Medvedev, a Third World War is getting closer in this way.

During a Ukrainian nighttime bombing of the city Olechky in southern Ukraine two people dead. That is what the local emergency services say, quoted by the Russian news agency TASS. Olechky is occupied by Russia.

According to this source dozens of grenades fired by the Ukrainian army at this town and other nearby towns.

During a Russian bombing of the Ukrainian city Lyman in the east of the country, are certain eight people died. This has been confirmed by the Ukrainian Interior Minister. The minister also speaks of thirteen injured.

Governor of the region Pavlo Kirilenko says the Russians bombarded the city around 10 a.m. with “multiple rocket launchers”. This would cause damage to a shop and a home.

Lyman is known as one important railway junction and was still in Russian hands earlier in the war. Ukraine recaptured the city late last year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has shared images of a visit to Snake Island. It small islet near the Crimea became world famous at the beginning of the war when a Russian warship wanted to take over the island, but was told that it had to “fuck off“. The Russians still managed to take Snake Island, but it is now back in Ukrainian hands.

Zelensky visited the island in response to the 500th anniversary of the invasion. He brought it tribute to the victims of the war. “I am grateful to everyone who fought here against the occupiers. The memory of the heroes who gave their lives in this battle – one of the most important during the entire war – was honored. Glory to all who fight for security in our Black Sea “, he posted on social media.

For the past seven days, heavy fighting has resumed in Bachmut, eastern Ukraine. According to British military intelligence the Ukrainian troops manage to gain territory, but it does not seem that the Russians will give up the symbolic city any time soon.

Read more about it here.

More than 9,000 civilians, including 500 children, have already died since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That reports the UN mission for Human Rights Monitoring in Ukraine (HRMMU), exactly 500 days after the start of the war.

“Today we see a new one grim milestone in the war that continues to take a horrific toll on Ukrainian civilians,” said Noel Calhoun of HRMMU.

Although the number of victims was lower on average this year than in 2022, the number rose again in May and June, according to the UN observers. At the same time, they note that the actual balance probably much higher.

For example, on June 27 thirteen came citizens om, including four children, in a rocket attack on Kramatorsk. And in Lviv, far from the front line, emergency services pulled a tenth body from the rubble of a building on Friday.

Cities like Boshanear the capital Kiev, and Marieopolin the southeast, have become symbols of the ferocity of the Russian offensive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will make an official visit to Turkey “next month”, his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday.

“We’ve studied how we do it agree (about the export of Ukrainian grain, ed.) can be extended after July 17. Maybe by reviewing it every three months, which we hope to do. We talked about it tonight with (Ukrainian President Volodymyr, ed.) Zelensky and I hope we will discuss it with Putin next month,” Erdogan told the press.

Furthermore, Erdogan said that “Ukraine it deserves to be in the NATO to be recorded”, after a conversation with the Ukrainian. Earlier, US President Joe Biden already indicated that membership is very unlikely in the short term.

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that a membership in the Western military alliance would be very much for Ukraine in the short term unlikely is. “I don’t think there is a consensus within NATO on whether or not Ukraine should be included in the NATO family, right now, in the middle of a war,” Biden told CNN.

Earlier Friday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had already indicated that Ukraine would necessary internal reforms must implement before it becomes eligible for NATO membership. Next week, NATO will meet for a top in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, which will also be attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia strongly opposes a NATO membership of its neighbour. One of the reasons it has cited for the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was to ensure that Ukraine “neutralstay and not join NATO.

In 2008, at a NATO summit in Bucharest, the US and other member states expressed their openness to the accession of the ex-Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO. Russia made it clear at the time that it considers Ukrainian NATO accession an “existential threat” and therefore “unacceptable”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked his American counterpart Joe Biden for the “indispensablemilitary aid that the United States is providing to its Russian-invaded country. Washington decided on Friday to provide Kiev with cluster munitions.

“A timely, broad and much needed one military aid package of the United States,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter. “We are the American people and President Joe Biden satisfying for decisive steps to bring Ukraine closer to victory over the enemy.”