Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan allowed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take five Azov commanders home to Ukraine yesterday, in direct violation of the 2022 prisoner swap deal between Russia and Ukraine. The deal had specified that the five were to stay in Türkiye until the end of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. At the time, President Zelenskyy explicitly stated that Kiev had agreed to that condition. Zelenskyy posted a video on Facebook of the group celebrating with him. The lead commander of the Azov Regiment Denys Prokopenko received a prolonged hug from Zelenskyy.
Prokopenko—known by his associates as “Comrade Redis,” from his days as an “extreme” soccer fan—was an early recruit into the Azov Battalion. He evidently displayed his leadership qualities in leading the infamous sniper attacks on civilians in the Donbass in 2014, and he rose in the ranks. There are, of course, multiple photos of him with the Azov version of the Nazi swastika. (https://teleskop.hr/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/LTC_Denys_Prokopenko-768x619.jpg )
