Ukraine and Russia Conduct New POW Exchange, Bringing Home 189 Ukrainians

On Monday, another significant exchange of prisoners of war took place between Ukraine and Russia, resulting in Ukraine bringing back 189 individuals who had been captured during the prolonged conflict. The Russian Defence Ministry reported the return of 150 Russian servicemen, who were released in Belarus before being sent back to Russia.

Images shared on Zelensky’s Telegram depicted Ukrainian servicemen wrapped in their national flags and embracing their tearful families late into the night. A video released by Russia showed Russian servicemen cheerily traveling on a bus and making calls to their loved ones, expressing eagerness to return home and asking about their families.

President Zelensky acknowledged the role of the United Arab Emirates and other partners for their assistance in organizing the swap. He emphasized that bringing home those held in Russian captivity is always a moment of joy and confirmed that today marked a successful operation.

While specific reasons for the discrepancy in the number of released Ukrainians versus Russians were not provided, it was noted that the Ukrainian returnees included civilians who had previously been held captive. Among those returning were soldiers from active combat zones and civilians captured during the siege of Mariupol, which lasted almost three months in 2022.

Denys Prokopenko, the commander of the 12th Special Forces “Azov” Brigade, announced that eleven of his men were included in the returning group, as he himself had been part of a previous swap. The Ukrainian agency responsible for these exchanges clarified that this marked the 59th such event since the start of the conflict in February 2022, bringing the total number of Ukrainian detainees returned home to 3,956. Among those freed this year were also Ukrainian nationals serving sentences from Russian judicial systems, which Ukraine refers to as "so-called sentences.