Day 501 of the Invasion of Ukraine: Zelensky returned from Turkey with the Commanders of "Azov" and Promises for NATO and a Grain Deal

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Day 501 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

• Zelensky returned from Turkey with the commanders of "Azov" and promises for NATO and grain
• Russia accused Turkey of violating the agreement on the commanders of “Azov”
• General Syrskyi: We are advancing in Bakhmut, in places the Russians are trapped
• Zelensky and Duda - together at a church in Lutsk

Zelensky returned from Turkey with the commanders of "Azov" and promises for NATO and grain

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Kyiv after a visit to Turkey, and surprisingly five commanders from the Azov Regiment were on board the plane. They were among the last defenders of Mariupol, after surrendering to the Russian army at the end of the siege of the Azovstal plant, they were transferred to Turkey, which they could not leave.

In Russia, "Azov" has been declared a terrorist and banned organization, and Denis Prokopenko, Sergey Volinsky, Svyatoslav Palamar, Oleg Khomenko and Denis Shlega (some of them officers from the National Guard of Ukraine) had to stay in Turkey until the end of hostilities, under the personal guarantees of the Turkish president.

The return violates the agreed conditions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He added to RIA "Novosti" that Russia was not informed about the decision and that the violation was from both Kyiv and Ankara.

This is also the end of the tour of the Ukrainian delegation, which started from Bulgaria and passed through the Czech Republic and Slovakia in search of concrete commitments to support Ukraine's future membership in NATO. The topic will be discussed by the leaders of the alliance countries in Vilnius on July 11-12. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after his meeting with Zelensky that Ukraine deserves to be in NATO. Previously in Sofia, Prague and Bratislava he heard promises of membership, but after the war ended.

On Saturday, Erdogan said he was pressing Russia to accept an extension of the Black Sea grain corridor deal for at least 3 months after it expires on July 17 and that he expects Vladimir Putin in Turkey in August to persuade him for a much longer deal - at least for 2 years - on the agreement, which was also mediated by the UN.

As the end of the extended deal nears, Ukrainian grain exports are at a standstill. Since June 26, no new ships have been registered to travel to Ukraine, according to Reuters. The last three ships traveling under the deal are loading at the Ukrainian port of Odesa and are likely to depart on Monday.

If Russia does not agree to extend a deal allowing safe grain and fertilizer exports from Ukrainian ports, Western countries are unlikely to continue cooperating with UN officials helping Moscow with its exports, the UN humanitarian chief said on Friday. help.

"The world has seen the value of the Black Sea Initiative... it's not something you throw away," the UN's Martin Griffiths told reporters.

"It is extremely important to take action in such a way that the life of the grain corridor, and therefore the lives of other people, do not depend on the mood with which the president of the Russian Federation wakes up," Zelensky said in Turkey.

More than 32 million tons of corn, wheat and other cereals have been exported from Ukraine under the agreement. Russia has complained that it is not getting enough to poor countries, but the United Nations says it has benefited those countries, helping to lower food prices by more than 20 percent worldwide.

Griffiths is the lead UN official on the Black Sea deal with Ukraine, while the UN's top trade representative, Rebeca Grynspan, is working to ease Russian food and fertilizer exports.

Rebeca Grynspan hopes to travel to Moscow before July 17, and Griffiths hopes to meet with the parties next week in Istanbul, where a joint coordination center of Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN officials is implementing the Black Sea deal.

To convince Russia to agree to the Black Sea deal, a three-year memorandum of understanding was signed at the same time, according to which UN officials agreed to help Russia with food and fertilizer exports.

Although Russian food and fertilizer exports are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has argued that restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have amounted to a barrier to supplies.

Russia's demands include resuming ammonium fertilizer exports via the Black Sea and reconnecting the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT payment system. The Black Sea deal allows for the export of ammonia - a key ingredient in nitrate fertilizers - but no such cargo has been shipped.

A pipeline that once carried up to 2.5 million tons of ammonia a year from Tolyatti in western Russia to the Ukrainian port of Pivdenny on the Black Sea to world markets has been idle since the war began.

It was damaged in three places last month, Griffiths said, adding that the UN had offered to send a team to assess it. He said both sides are interested, but a team has not yet been sent because the pipeline failure is in an active war zone.

He said that if it could be repaired, then an agreement would be necessary to protect it from war. According to the International Energy Agency, it is the longest ammonia pipeline in the world (about 2,470 kilometers). "So there are many obstacles to this immediately becoming a realistic prospect," Griffiths said.

Russia accused Turkey of violating the agreement on the commanders of “Azov”

Russia has accused Turkey of violating the agreement on the commanders of the Azov Regiment. Yesterday, five officers from the defenders of the city of Mariupol returned to Ukraine. Until now they were in Turkey. They surrendered to Russian captivity in May 2022. The Azov Regiment and marine units defended Mariupol for three months and helped the Ukrainian army slow down the Russian invasion. On social networks, Russian nationalists criticized Moscow for freeing the Ukrainian commanders. They are unhappy that many of Mariupol's defenders were released from prison in order to free Putin's crony Ukrainian millionaire Viktor Medvechuk.

"I want to thank you, Mr. President. The whole team that helped find the key to these shackles. We're back and we're going to continue to do our job. We're soldiers and we've taken an oath," said Sergej Volinsky, a Marine officer.

In the words of Denis Prokopenko - commander of the "Azov" regiment, he explained that starting tomorrow they will continue to fight together. “We have certainly not had our last word on the battlefield. And today, the most important thing is that the Ukrainian army took the strategic initiative on the front. We are making progress with each passing day," said Prokopenko.

General Syrskyi: We are advancing in Bakhmut, in places the Russians are trapped

Ukrainian forces have made progress in the Bakhmut section of the front, with Russian invaders trapped in some places.

The offensive of the Ukrainian soldiers continues, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, wrote on his Telegram channel.

"Bahmut direction. We have successes, the Defense Forces continue to advance, and the enemy is trapped in some places," he shared.

The commander also showed a video of the remarkable work of a sniper with the call sign "Alpha" from the group "Bakhmut's Ghost" of the separate presidential brigade "Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky".

"...From 1,200 meters, he destroyed the enemy with one shot. While the sniper was working, the group was pursued by an enemy drone, which he also managed to shoot down. Excellent work," stated the colonel general.

As "Alpha" himself said, the difficulty was that now there were many bushes around and he had to shoot in a sitting position from the point of view. The sniper added that while approaching the positions, the group was chased by an enemy drone. The military opened fire on the drone and one of the members of the group with the call sign "Kitsoni" shot it down.

Zelensky and Duda - together at a church in Lutsk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda met today in the Ukrainian city of Lutsk and honored the memory of the victims of the Volhynia massacre, UNIAN and Reuters reported.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Andrzej Duda visited the Cathedral "St. Peter and Paul", Ukrinform specified.

The visit of the two leaders to the northwestern Ukrainian city was not announced in advance.

The two presidents marked the anniversary of the massacre of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in World War II. The killings were a source of tension between the two allied countries, Reuters recalls. Warsaw is one of Kyiv's most important backers in the war launched by Moscow in 2022. However, the Volhynia massacre continued to weigh on bilateral relations, especially as the anniversary of the July 11 event approached.

Footage broadcast on television shows Zelensky and Duda together in a church in Lutsk for a ceremony in memory of the victims.

According to Polish historians, up to 12,000 Ukrainians may have died in Polish retaliatory operations after the massacre.

"Today we pay tribute to all the innocent victims of Volhynia! The memory unites us!" Duda's office said on Twitter. "Together we are stronger".

Zelensky also published the same statement on Twitter, in Ukrainian and Polish.

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