Tuesday 4 October 2022 04:21 PM Ukraine's First Lady meets heroes of Mariupol as they are reunited with their ... trends now
Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska was among the first to greet the heroic defenders of Mariupol as they were reunited with their families in Turkey after a prisoner swap secured their release from Russia.
There were scenes of heartbreaking joy as five of the commanders that oversaw the three month defence of the port city were finally able to embrace their excited children and hold their loved ones once again.
Among them were Azov commander Denis Prokopenko, his deputy Svyatoslav Palamar, Denys Shleha and Marine commander Serhiy Volynsky, each having withstood months of torture, neglect, malnutrition as the Russians reneged on the promises they made prior to the defenders' surrender.
The four heroes were awarded the Hero of Ukraine title and the Order of the Golden Star by Andriy Yermak, Head of the Presidential Administration, for holding out in the sprawling Azovstal steel plant on the Black Sea coast while under constant bombardment by besieging Russian forces.
Part of the deal that the two warring sides struck to bring them home was that they must sit out the entirety of the war in Turkey in an undisclosed location under the auspices of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The joyous reunion with their anxiously waiting families was something many feared would never happen again after they were last seen being bussed off to prisons likened to concentration camps.
Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska shakes hands with the ecstatic daughter of Denys Shleha after the five Azovstal commanders are finally reunited with their families after 19 weeks as prisoners of war
A smiling Serhii Volynskyi receives a kiss from his wife and Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska as he cradles his son in his hands after being released from 19 weeks of Russian captivity as a prisoner of war
Denys Shleha and family pose with Ukraine's first lady Olena Zelenska and Andriy Yermak, Head of the Presidential Administration, after they are reunited
Azov commander Denis Prokopenko hugs his daughter with an expression of pure happiness as he is finally reunited with his family
Denys Shleha's daughter tears across the room to jump into the arms of the father that she thought she would never see again
Mariupol defender Denys Shleha is greeted by his emotional wife and daughter who rush to him and hug him tightly as he enters the room
Many doubted they would be seen alive again. Russian hardliners, who view Azov as the worst of the worst - Nazis and war criminals - had been calling for show trials executions.
More than 2,000 defenders, many in the Azov unit, had marched out of the Azovstal steel plant's twisted wreckage into Russian captivity in mid-May, ending a nearly three-month siege of the port city of Mariupol.
'We agreed that the soldiers - both rank and file and officers - would be able to live together, although by custom they would have been interned separately,' a Ukrainian intelligence officer told Ukrainska Pravda.
Our doctors were to be able to examine the soldiers, and our cooks, if there are any left, will be able to cook with what is available. They were all to be kept together.'
But it quickly became clear that these conditions would not be honoured, the officer said.
Originally, the group were supposed to be kept together at the Olenivka prison camp on Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory under
