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This is how kyiv freed its heroes in Russian hands

2022-09-25T10:41:57.280Z


A pact hatched for months by the secret services of Russia and Ukraine, far from the political brawl and the battlefield, has allowed the largest exchange of prisoners of war


The game has dragged on on the war board and Ukraine has known how to wait and negotiate for months with a definitive ace up its sleeve.

This has achieved the largest exchange of prisoners of war.

That card is Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch and opponent who is a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He had been detained since he tried to flee in April and Volodymyr Zelensky's government believes he could have taken his place if kyiv had fallen.

By exchanging it, Ukraine has been able to celebrate the return home of the most precious pieces among those captured by the Russians in the contest.

The secret services of kyiv and Moscow have participated in the final agreement for this exchange, advised by third countries as "guarantors and mediators", acknowledges Mijaílo Podoliak, presidential adviser.

It has been, he adds,

a pact concocted without the participation of politicians even before the fall of the city of Mariupol and the famous Azovstal factory in May at Russian hands.

That it has been achieved now, at a time of maximum tension, is because “this process is taking place in parallel with the situation at the front”, explains Podoliak.

But, who are the protagonists of that prisoner exchange that became effective on Wednesday?

Some of the almost 300 beneficiaries (215 Ukrainians for 56 Russians) are important for their positions, others for having become popular symbols of kyiv's resistance to an invasion that celebrated seven months on Saturday.

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The last hour of the war in Ukraine, live

Among those released there is, however, one who has aroused special interest in the citizens of Ukraine and beyond its borders.

Social networks and the media have boosted his fame these months.

Thus, it is rare to find someone who does not know who Mijaílo Dianov is, a 42-year-old Marine Corps sergeant whose image went around the world in May.

He smiled victoriously despite lying wounded inside Mariupol's besieged Azovstal metallurgical plant.

“I consider him a hero.

To him and to all those who did not give up their positions and fought to the end.

He was a leader, he knew how to command and organize well, ”Archi, 31, who was Dianov's captain before he was sent to Mariupol, tells EL PAÍS by phone.

That famous portrait, like that of other combatants from the steel mill in that southern city,

Orest

, a reporter for the Azov battalion, who has also been able to get out of captivity.

A few days after those photos were distributed, the entire group fell into Russian hands.

This is how Archi describes his partner: “Mijaílo was the head of an anti-tank grenade launcher brigade.

He handled his 70-millimeter cannon very well and positioned himself 150 meters from the front line.

(...) He has engineering talent and set up a workshop where he perfected weapons.

He modified grenades and projectiles, enriched them with trilite, modernized everything he could, did welding, mounted mines attached to mobile phones… And he did it right there with a friend of his under enemy fire”.

“During the siege of Azovstal, he knew that there were many of our comrades trapped there.

I knew about him from the famous photos published all over the world”, adds Archi.

"We know that they had to experience tremendous things in captivity," says Guf, 39, another of the soldiers who coincided with Dianov and some of those arrested four months ago in Mariupol.

Ukrainian military officer Mikhailo Dianov, after his release from Russian captivity, on Wednesday.

"Mom, I'm free," was the first message Irina Dianova received this week.

Grateful for having him alive, she and she are waiting for him at her house in the city of Ternopil, west of kyiv, with her favorite cake and ready for him to regain the lost weight, according to the public platform Suspilne.

Dianov's freedom has been a huge relief despite the general impression that her arm has been left by not receiving medical attention during detention.

Her muscles have atrophied and she is missing four centimeters of bone, according to authorities.

His photos in the hospital have unleashed a wave of solidarity led by his sister, Olena Lavrushko.

He estimates that they will need about 500,000 hryvnias (about 12,500 euros) and has launched a public campaign to try to save the right arm of Misha, short for Mijaílo, who, among other jobs, was a pianist before enlisting as a volunteer in 2015 Both he and many of those released are admitted to different hospitals.

Some media reported on Friday that the popular collections have already contributed more than 10 million hryvnias (about 250,000 euros) to collaborate in health expenses ―the authorities allowed families to receive those released in Chernihiv, near the Russian border before being taken to hospitals.

But not all have returned and not all will be able to return.

"What hurts the most is that many of our people will never see their families after the Russian terrorist attack in the Olenivka prison," reporter Kozatski wrote on his Instagram social network profile in a message in which he gives the thanks and assures that "the fight continues".

He is referring to the July attack that killed more than 40 Ukrainian prisoners in a Russian prison in Olenivka, in eastern Ukraine.

Mijaílo Dianov, already with a wounded arm, after being detained by the Russians at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, on May 17.

In addition to Dianov and Kozatski, the commander of the Azov battalion, Denis Prokopenko, and his deputy, Sviatoslav Palamar, both very famous, have been released.

They are two of the five responsible for that body that fights under the National Guard and that, according to what was agreed, will remain in Turkey until the end of the war.

They have also been handed over a police chief of the Donetsk region, Mijaílo Vershinin;

the commander of the 36th Marine Infantry Brigade, Sergei Volinski;

military doctor Katerina Polishchuk, eight months pregnant, and a dozen foreign militiamen who were fighting alongside local troops.

Some of the latter had been sentenced to death by unrecognized courts in areas occupied by Kremlin troops in eastern Ukraine.

On the Russian side, the leading role is taken by the aforementioned Viktor Medvedchuk, one of the richest men in Ukraine and arrested by kyiv at the beginning of the invasion.

He is a friend of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who is the godfather of his daughter.

He is the owner of three television channels and an influential political opponent.

Medvedchuk did not flee because "in the event that the invasion had been successful, he would become temporary president of Ukraine" before leaving that position in the hands of someone else and "continue to exercise behind the scenes", understands Sergey Leshchenko, Zelensky's adviser who He was previously an anti-corruption activist and journalist.

The tycoon, he adds, has worked for "Russian propaganda" and "Russian interests" in Ukraine since he reached political heights in the 1990s.

To balance the exchange of prisoners of war, Moscow has put on the scale a total of 215 of the detainees it has made in these seven months.

Among them, the leaders of Azov and more than a hundred of his men, who became leaders of the resistance in Mariupol and whose capture alive meant a treasure for Russia.

kyiv, for its part, has only provided 56 prisoners.

Of course, among them is Medvedchuk, whose role makes him something like the sticker that all children anxiously look for in the schoolyard to finish off the album.

But unlike in Russia, where the deal has raised a cloud of discontent with Putin, the prisoner swap has been greeted with jubilation in Ukraine by both authorities and citizens.

Zelensky proudly greets the return of his “superheroes”.

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Source: elparis

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