Russia and Ukraine they made this Monday a new exchange of prisoners and each side freed 150 prisoners of warthe Russian Ministry of Defense reported in a statement.
“After a process of negotiations on the territory controlled by the kyiv regime 150 Russian soldiers were returned. In exchange, 150 were delivered prisoners of war of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” said the Russian command. However, Volodymyr Zelensky raised the number of released Ukrainian prisoners to 189.
The Russian Defense Ministry stated that “the Russian military is on the territory of Belarus, where they receive the necessary psychological and medical treatment, and were offered the possibility of contacting their families.
“All the released soldiers will be transferred to Russia for treatment and rehabilitation in medical facilities of the Ministry of Defense,” he added.
A Russian video showed Smiling soldiers on a bus, some calling to their families. “We’ll be home soon. How are the kids? How’s our boy?” said a man.
Images posted on Zelensky’s Telegram channel showed military, some draped in blue and yellow national flagstearfully hugging relatives long after dark outside a building.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the exchange was possible thanks to the humanitarian mediation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
It is about the first exchange since last October 18when it took place an exchange of 95 for another 95.
Since then, Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of sabotaging prisoner exchanges. by focusing its attention on the exchange of fighters from the “nationalist battalions”, something that kyiv has denied.
These Ukrainian battalions, made up of volunteers, have been the most combative units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the beginning of the war. At the beginning of the conflict they were not part of the Ukrainian Army, but later they joined the kyiv Armed Forces.
According to Moscow, this year within the framework of the exchanges The Russian side proposed to hand over 935 prisoners of war to Ukraine, of which kyiv only accepted 279always according to the information provided by Russia.
From 2022 More than 45 exchanges of prisoners of war have taken place between Russia and Ukraine, during which each side recovered some 3,000 military personnel.
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