Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war, with each side releasing 103 people.
The swap on Saturday, September 14, 2024, was the second of such in two days.
In a statement confirming the prisoner swap, the Russian defence ministry said that the 103 Russian soldiers exchanged had been taken prisoner in the border Kursk region where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion in August.
“At present, all Russian servicemen are on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance, as well as an opportunity to contact their relatives,” it added.
Emirati state news agency disclosed that the United Arab Emirates mediated the exchange of 206 prisoners between Russia and Ukraine, noting it was the country’s eighth such mediation since the start of 2024.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that all 103 Ukrainians returned were from the military – 82 soldiers and privates and 21 officers.
“Our people are home,” Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.
He added, “We have successfully brought back another 103 warriors from Russian captivity to Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy posted pictures of servicemen wrapped in the national blue and yellow flag, hugging each other, talking on mobile phones and posing for group photographs at an undisclosed location.
Kyiv and Moscow have frequently exchanged prisoners since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and Saturday’s swap was the third since Ukraine began a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in early August.
Ukrainian officials have previously said its troops had captured at least 600 Russian soldiers during the incursion, and that this would help it secure the return of captured Ukrainians.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s ombudsman, said that the majority of the freed Ukrainians had been in Russian captivity since the early days of the invasion.
He posted a short video on the Telegram messaging app showing the servicemen standing in front of a bus and shouting “Glory to Ukraine.”
Lubinets said that Kyiv had so far secured the return of 3,672 Ukrainians in 57 exchanges.
Timothy Snyder Leads Charity Run To Raise On Conditions Of Ukrainian Prisoners Of War
Also on Saturday US historian and author, Timothy Snyder led a charity run in Kyiv to raise awareness of the conditions under which Ukrainian prisoners of war are held in Russia as the conflict approaches a third winter.
Ukrainian soldiers often give harrowing accounts of their conditions in Russian captivity when they return home as part of regular prisoner exchanges.
In a report issued in July, a United Nations human rights agency said it “continued to document the widespread use of torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, against civilians and Ukrainian prisoners of war held by the Russian Federation.”
People clapped and cheered after Snyder, a 55-year-old Yale University Professor who has written extensively on eastern Europe and the global resurgence of authoritarian regimes and is much admired in Ukraine, addressed the nearly thousand runners. He then joined a workout and participated in the run.
“Thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers are illegally held in captivity during an illegal war,” Snyder told a news agency just ahead of the run.
“This race is about reminding everyone of that and expressing solidarity with Ukrainians and giving Ukrainians a chance to do something together,” he added.
The 5 and 10-kilometer runs took place around a sprawling park in the Ukrainian capital created out of a renovated Soviet-era exhibition center.
The runners included members of the public, servicepeople and veterans, as well as wives of the Prisoners of War.
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