Lieutenant Colonel Denys Prokopenko (alias Redis), Commander of the 12th Azov Special Forces Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, made a speech by videolink to delegates at the EstMil.tech 2024 military conference in Tallinn, Estonia, on 25 January.
Lieutenant Colonel Denys 'Redis' Prokopenko, Commander of the Azov 12th Special Operations Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, has said that over 900 Azov fighters who defended Mariupol in spring 2022 remain in Russian captivity.
Kyrylo Budanov, Head of Ukraine's Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence, has said that Ukraine will eventually bring back all its prisoners of war, including the Azov fighters. Source: Budanov on the national 24/7 newscast Quote: "Russia is playing its usual game: it is trying to play a trump card of, so to speak, questions that are socially complex in their understanding in many layers of our population, which include the question of Azov.
Most of those who qualify for the ranks of the National Guard's Azov Brigade want to be snipers and scouts, although these are highly demanding specialisms. Source: Lev Pashko, an officer of the Azov Special Operations Detachment of the National Guard of Ukraine and Hero of Ukraine, in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda Quote: "I think there is a certain romanticisation of these specialisms.