Ukraine and Russia conducted the 56th prisoner exchange on Friday on the border with Belarus. The Ukrainian side handed over 49 people to the other side. President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that the Russians had handed over the same number of Ukrainian prisoners.
– 23 women and 26 men returned to their homeland. 42 military personnel, seven civilians. Soldiers of the National Guard, defenders of Azovstal in Mariupol, soldiers of the Navy, border guard, territorial defense, police – said the representative of the Ukrainian military intelligence HUR Andriy Yusov.
Exchange of prisoners
The Russian prisoners were brought to one of the currently closed Ukrainian-Belarusian border crossings by bus and minibus. They were accompanied by ambulances, ready to take over the arriving Belarus Ukrainian prisoners of war and vehicles of Ukrainian services and military formations.
Ukraine and Russia have carried out another prisoner exchangePAP
The Ukrainians did not allow journalists to talk to the Russian prisoners. They could only be seen through the windows of vehicles. Most of them turned away at the sight of cameras and camcorders.
– It was very hard. I always hoped that I would be able to return home. I heard yesterday evening that I was going on an exchange. That the Russians brought us to Ukraine through Belarus, I found out only here, from the people who were taking us away, said 27-year-old Oleh, a marine who defended Mariupol and was taken prisoner from there in Russia for over two and a half years.
Thousands of Ukrainians in captivity
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, 3,569 Ukrainians have returned from Russian captivity to their homeland. Moscow has yet to agree to Kiev’s proposal to exchange all for all.
In February this year, the spokesman human rights Ukraine's Dmytro Lubinets said that 28,000 Ukrainians are held in Russian captivity.
Main image source: PAP