Iran Press/ Europe: More than 200 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have returned home in a prisoner swap, the warring countries have said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday that 106 Russian soldiers were released from Ukrainian custody as part of an agreement with Ukraine.
Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said that Russia freed 100 Ukrainian prisoners.
Neither announcement mentioned whether any intermediaries were involved in the agreement.
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said among those freed were Ukrainian army soldiers, national guard and navy servicemen, and border guards.
The freed Russians were being flown on military transport planes to Moscow for medical treatment and rehabilitation, the Defence Ministry said.
Such exchanges represent one of the few areas of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia. The two sides have returned hundreds of each other’s soldiers, as well as the bodies of fallen troops, since the war began.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in televised remarks that the country has nearly seven million internally displaced people, including about one million children.
Most of them have abandoned their homes in the east and the south to move to locations in central and western Ukraine.
Separately, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said that Ukraine handed over to Russia five severely wounded soldiers in line with Geneva Conventions.
According to Reuters, since March 2022, more than 2,000 Ukrainians have been freed as a result of prisoner exchanges with Russia.
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