Russia and Ukraine have successfully exchanged 206 prisoners of war in a swap mediated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirmed that 103 Russian servicemen, captured during Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, were released.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared photos of the freed Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday, stating, “Our people are home.” The Ukrainian prisoners included 82 privates and sergeants, along with 21 officers from various services such as the armed forces, national guard, border guards, and police. These soldiers had been captured defending areas including Kyiv, Donetsk, Mariupol, Azovstal, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv.
The released Russian soldiers are now in Belarus, where they are receiving psychological and medical assistance before returning to Russia.
This is not the first time the UAE, which has maintained neutrality in the conflict, has mediated a prisoner exchange. In August, following Ukraine’s surprise incursion into the Kursk region, an exchange involving 230 prisoners was completed.
The latest swap occurs as Russia has claimed to recapture a village in eastern Ukraine. On Saturday, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced that their forces had taken control of Zhelanne Pershe, a village strategically located near the town of Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub for Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region.
