Azov Brigade returns to fight at front

The Azov Brigade of Ukraine's National Guard is again carrying out military operations at the front, Colonel Mykola Urshalovych said during a briefing at the Military Media Center on Aug. 17.

"The Special Operations Brigade 'Azov' has recovered and begun carrying out combat tasks in the area of the Serebrianskyi forest," the National Guard officer said.

According to Urshalovych, the Azov Brigade soldiers are holding the captured lines and inflicting heavy losses on enemy manpower and equipment.

On Aug. 15, the brigade's artillery destroyed a Russian mortar and a vehicle near the Serebrianskyi forest in Luhansk Oblast, the officer specified.

The Azov fighters became a symbol of Ukraine's resistance through their tenacious defense of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in the first three months of the war. Russian forces eventually took Mariupol by May 2022, capturing the remaining defenders.

Kyiv managed to exchange around 200 captured soldiers for pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvechuk last year's September. Separately, five top commanders of the Azovstal's defense were exchanged for 55 Russian prisoners and sent to Turkey.

In early July, Ukraine managed to secure the return of the commanders back home, namely Denys Prokopenko, Serhiy Volynskyi, Sviatoslav Palamar, Denys Shleha, and Oleh Khomenko, despite complaints by the Kremlin.

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The Kyiv IndependentDaria Shulzhenko