More than 100 people shared the Russia and Ukraine, in a prisoner exchange that took place today, as reported by the Interfax news agency citing the Russian Defense Ministry.
Saturday’s prisoner swap, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, involved 206 military personnel from both countries.
The ministry said the Russian soldiers exchanged on Saturday were captured in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian forces seized ground there last month in their first major incursion into Russia.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, of the 103 “fighters” released, 82 were soldiers and conscripts and 21 were officers, including police and border guards.
The second exchange after the Kursk storming
Photographers captured the moment the smiling, excited Ukrainians, draped in their country’s flag, embraced their counterparts after the talks at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. They appeared pale and thin, and all of the freed men had shaved heads. One of them knelt on the ground, the national flag draped over his shoulders, and looked out toward his homeland as he made a phone call.
This is the second such exchange since Ukraine’s invasion of the Kursk region, which took place after negotiations between the two countries mediated by mediators.
UAE officials said the number of prisoners exchanged through their mediation efforts now stands at 1,994.
Ukrainian appeal
Ukraine has made a fresh appeal to the West to allow it to strike deeper into Russia, after a meeting between the leaders of the United States and Britain a day earlier failed to produce any visible change in its policy on the use of long-range weapons. “Russian terrorism begins at weapons depots, airports and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said on Saturday.
Zelensky has been pushing for months to use Britain’s Storm Shadow missiles, which can hit targets at least 300 kilometers away, to bomb air bases, missile sites and other military targets inside Russia.
On Thursday, Vladimir Putin warned Western leaders that allowing Ukraine to use Western-made long-range missiles would amount to a NATO war with Russia.