Anastasia Gorbacheva15:11, 17.07.24

The exchange took place through the mediation of the UAE.

Ukraine and Russia held a new prisoner exchange today, July 17. 95 Ukrainian defenders returned home from Russian captivity.

“We continue to bring our people home. Another 95 defenders have been released from Russian captivity. These are soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, border guards,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on his Telegram channel.

He thanked the UAE for acting as a facilitator for this exchange.

“I am grateful to our team that deals with exchanges and to the United Arab Emirates for mediating this release. No matter how difficult it may be, we are looking for everyone who may be in captivity. We must return everyone,” the president concluded.

14​​

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported that among those who returned from captivity were 49 soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including a participant in the “air bridge” who volunteered to fly by helicopter to “Azovstal” to help the units blocked there, and two from the Air Force, 21 National Guardsmen, 10 naval sailors, seven from the Territorial Defense Forces, five border guards, two from the State Special Transport Service and one defender from a volunteer formation of a territorial community.

All those released this time were men: 88 privates and sergeants, seven officers.

Among those released, there are 23 people who defended Mariupol, 13 of whom were defenders of Azovstal, 41 fought in the Donetsk direction, nine each in the Luhansk and Zaporizhia directions, and three each in the Kherson and Kharkov directions.

One of the released sailors was in the Kyiv region at the time of the invasion and immediately joined the defense of his village as part of the Makarovskaya Troops. While providing humanitarian aid to residents of the local community, he was captured by Russian Buryat servicemen.

In turn, Ukrainian ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets reported that the returned soldiers will eat, receive clean clothes, be examined by doctors, and be prescribed the necessary treatment and rehabilitation.

In total, we have managed to return 3,405 of our people home since the start of the full-scale invasion.

(C)UNIAN 2024