Key PointsClose to 200 prisoners of war from each side have been returned.The deal was originally meant to take place on 24 January but was pushed back The agreement was brokered by the United Arab Emirates.
Russia and Ukraine say they have completed a prisoner exchange, the first since the crash last week of a Russian military transport plane that authorities in Moscow say was carrying 65 Ukrainian soldiers ahead of a similar swap.
The two countries have carried out periodic prisoner swaps via intermediaries since the war began nearly two years ago, despite the absence of peace talks since the early months.
The Russian defence ministry said each side had received 195 soldiers while Ukraine said it had been given 207 people back.
Russia’s foreign ministry thanked the United Arab Emirates for helping broker the deal, adding in a statement that Russian soldiers would be flown to Moscow for medical and psychological treatment.
The ministry said Wednesday’s swap was originally intended to take place on 24 January but was disrupted by Ukraine shooting down a Russian plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners to the exchange point with a ground-to-air missile killing all 74 people on board.
The Il-76 transport plane was downed inside Russia’s Belgorod region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Ukraine had used a US Patriot missile system to bring it down.
Recently swapped Ukrainian prisoners of war covered in national flags sit in a bus after a prisoner exchange on the Ukrainian Russian border. Source: AP / Danylo Pavlov
Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied that it downed the plane, and has demanded proof of who was on board.
Putin said Russia would continue prisoner exchanges and that Ukraine had indicated it was open to more.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the exchange on X: “Our people are back. 207 of them. We return them home no matter what.”
Ukraine’s state body in charge of PoWs said the 50th such exchange had brought home soldiers involved in defending the cities of Mariupol and Kherson as well as some captured by Russia on Snake Island in the Black Sea.
It said marines and combat medics were among the Ukrainians returned, with 36 injured or seriously ill.
The latest and biggest exchange was on 3 January, when 478 captives were traded, also with UAE mediation.
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