KIEV / MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) – Ukraine and Russia have each released more than 90 men in a new prisoner exchange. The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said in his blog on the Telegram news channel on Sunday that Kiev has got back 95 defenders who were captured by the Russians in battles for the cities of Bakhmut and Mariupol, among other things. “Many of our people were injured in captivity,” he said. The Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow reported the release of 94 of its own fighters from Ukrainian captivity.
The released Russian soldiers are to be treated in the ministry’s medical facilities and undergo rehabilitation, the agency said in a statement. In Kiev, Yermak also said that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made it one of the main tasks to bring back all soldiers from Russian captivity to Ukraine. Work is being done on it 24 hours a day, he said.
Russia and Ukraine have already exchanged prisoners several times in the 15-month war. Most recently, there was a major exchange of prisoners at the end of May. Since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, more than 2,500 Ukrainians have returned from Russian captivity with the new exchange, according to information from Kiev. In most cases, the warring parties hand over about the same number of fighters as the other side./mau/DP/he