Ukraine and Russia conducted another POW swap – the fourth one in a week – the warring sides said on Saturday, under agreements reached in Istanbul earlier this month.
“We continue to take our people out of Russian captivity. This is the fourth exchange in a week,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Russia’s defence ministry, in a statement posted to Telegram, said: “In accordance with the Russian-Ukrainian agreements... another group of Russian servicemen was returned from the territory controlled by the Kiev regime.”
Ukrainian officials responsible for exchanging prisoners of war said they had received another batch of 1,200 unidentified bodies from Russia, which it said Russia claimed, “belong to Ukrainian citizens, including military personnel”, as part of the Istanbul agreements as well.
Ukraine did not say whether it returned any bodies to Russia.
Photos published by Zelenskyy on Telegram showed men of various ages, mostly with shaved heads, wearing camouflage and draped in Ukrainian flags.
Some were injured, others disembarked from buses and hugged those welcoming them, or were seen calling someone by phone, sometimes covering their faces or smiling.
Moscow’s defence ministry released its own video showing men in uniforms holding Russian flags, clapping and chanting “Russia, Russia”, “glory to Russia” and “hooray”, some raising their fists in the air.
The exchange came as Russia repeatedly rejected ceasefire calls and intensified its offensive along the front line, and especially in the northeastern Sumy region, where it seeks to establish a “buffer zone” to protect its Kursk region, previously partly occupied by Ukraine.
Zelenskyy claimed Russia’s advance on Sumy was stopped, adding that Kiev’s forces have managed to retake one village.
According to the Ukrainian president, Russia was using 53,000 men in the Sumy operation.
