This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
The Ukrainian government has said it conducted a prisoner exchange with Moscow, with 12 Ukrainian soldiers and 14 civilians returning home following their release by Russian forces.
“On the order of President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy, the third prisoner exchange took place today. Twelve of our servicemen are returning home, including one female officer,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram on April 9.
She said nine women were among the 14 civilians released.
She did not say how many Russians had been released.
On March 1, the Ukrainian military said a prisoner exchange had been carried out with Russia for the first time since Moscow launched a full-scale military attack against Ukraine on February 24.
“The first exchange of prisoners took place in the Sumy region. We exchanged our five people from the territorial defense for one Russian military police officer,” the chief of the military administration of Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy, Dmytro Zhyvytskiy, said on Telegram at the time.
On April 1, senior Ukrainian officials confirmed the second prisoner swap, conducted in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya.
Zelenskiy’s office said 86 captive Ukrainian service members had been repatriated, but it did not say how many Russian prisoners were exchanged.
