, (Reuters) – Ukraine and Russia conducted a swap of more than 500 prisoners of war on Saturday, the latest in a series of exchanges since Russia launched a full-scale invasion more than three years ago.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, said 277 Ukrainian service personnel had returned home from Russian captivity.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said 246 servicemen had been handed over by Kyiv. It said a further 31 injured prisoners of war had been handed over to Ukraine and 15 of its own wounded servicemen had also been returned by Kyiv.
All Russian servicemen were now in Belarus, Moscow’s close ally in the war, awaiting transfer back home.
Video footage posted by Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s parliament commissioner for human rights, showed a gathering of Ukrainian servicemen, many wrapped in the blue and yellow national flag in a wooded area alongside several buses.
The men were then seen seated on the edge of a tarmac shouting patriotic slogans. The location of the gathering was not disclosed.
Zelenskiy said a total of 4,552 Ukrainians – service personnel and civilians – had been returned since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Both sides thanked the United Arab Emirates for helping arrange the exchange.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Lucy Papachristou and Ron Popeski; Editing by Alison Williams and Alistair Bell)
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