kyiv and Moscow carried out a prisoner exchange on Friday, the second since the start of the Ukrainian offensive in the Russian region of Kursk, with President Volodymyr Zelensky announcing the return to Ukraine of 49 prisoners of war.
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” Forty-nine Ukrainians returned home “, he welcomed Volodymyr Zelensky on Telegram, accompanying his message with photos of the soldiers, including women, wrapped in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags. AFP journalists present at the exchange were able to see Russian soldiers, some wearing balaclavas, being taken in a bus towards the border with Belarus, a country allied with Russia, but neither Volodymyr Zelensky nor the Russian authorities have so far given details of the exchange and the number of Russians released.
Also readA prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place this Saturday
At the border, faces reflect relief, but also fatigue. The freed Ukrainian soldiers, mostly women, get off a bus with tears in their eyes, hugging the people waiting for them. We are home, we are home! “, some of them repeat.
Tamara Mirochnikova, 28, and Tetiana Bougaï, 29, say: don’t believe it “. ” It’s over! “They explain that they were transported for five days by the Russian army, without knowing that they were going to be released, after two and a half years of captivity.
Several thousand Ukrainian soldiers are believed to be detained in Russia
Then, everyone lines up, waving Ukrainian flags, before singing the national anthem. Some make their first phone calls to their loved ones, moments of intense joy. “We are very happy to see everyone return from captivity,” rejoices Olena Tolkatchova, a member of the Azov regiment, a unit of the Ukrainian national guard that notably fought the Russian army during the siege of Mariupol in the first weeks of the invasion launched by Moscow, to AFP. She deplores “ the worst conditions ” of detention, according to her, of Ukrainian prisoners in Russia, without providing further information on this subject.
The released soldiers are then taken to a hospital for check-ups, a standard procedure in such cases. Since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, the two warring countries have regularly exchanged prisoners. On June 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was holding 6,465 Ukrainian soldiers, compared to 1,348 Russian soldiers held prisoner in Ukraine. kyiv has not confirmed these figures.