On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky released from Turkey five former commanders of Ukraine’s military in Mariupol, a highly symbolic success that Russia claimed breached a prisoner swap arrangement negotiated last year.

Russia condemned the release immediately. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said Ankara had committed to keep the soldiers in Turkey under the swap deal and that Moscow had not been told.

President Zelensky also paid a visit to Snake Island, a Black Sea island that Russian forces seized on the day of the invasion and later abandoned.

After commanding a hard three-month defense of Mariupol from the Azovstal steel factory last year, the five commanders were hailed as heroes in Ukraine.

“We are returning from Turkey and bringing our heroes home”, said Volodymyr Zelensky, who met Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Friday for talks.

Thousands of civilians were killed as Russian soldiers razed Mariupol in the early months of the war. Ukrainian fighters held out in tunnels and bunkers beneath the Azovstal factory until Kyiv ordered their surrender in May of last year.

Some of them were released in September in a prisoner swap arranged by Ankara, with the condition that the commanders remain in Turkey until the end of the war.

President Zelensky did not explain why the officers were allowed to return home today in his statements. The Turkish Ministry of Communications did not reply to a request for comment.

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