Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed.
He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange.
Photo: AP
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people.
The reason for the discrepancy in numbers was not immediately clear.
“We are working to free everyone from Russian captivity,” Zelenskiy said in a statement. “We do not forget anyone.”
He posted pictures of Ukrainian troops sitting on a bus, some holding the nation’s blue-and-yellow national flag.
Zelenskiy said that those freed from Russian captivity included defenders of Snake Island off the Black Sea port of Odesa, which was seized by Russia in the opening days of its invasion, as well as troops who defended the city of Mariupol, that was captured by Moscow’s forces early in the war after a nearly three-month siege.
“The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us, and today is one of those days: our team managed to return 189 Ukrainians home,” Zelenskiy said.
In Moscow, the defense ministry said that Russian troops were first taken to the territory of Russia’s neighbor and ally Belarus, where they received “psychological and medical assistance,” before they returned to Russia.
Russia and Ukraine have conducted dozens of such prisoner exchanges during the nearly three-year war.
The prisoner exchange came as US President Joe Biden on Monday announced that the US would send nearly US$2.5 billion more in weapons to Ukraine as his administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office.
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