Ukraine brings home 189 POWs in swap with Russia

Ukraine and Russia carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war (POWs) on Monday, with Kyiv bringing home 189 former captives, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday.

Zelenskyy thanked the United Arab Emirates and other partners for facilitating the swap.

“The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us. And today is one of such days: our team managed to bring 189 Ukrainians home,” Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported the prisoner swap earlier on Monday, saying each side had freed 150 prisoners of war. There was no immediate explanation of the discrepancy in the numbers reported.

WATCH | Prisoners of war return home: 

Hundreds of soldiers return home in Ukrainian-Russian prisoner swap

Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war on Monday with Kyiv bringing home 189 former captives, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that at least 150 of its servicemen are returning home as part of the deal.

Zelenskyy said the returning Ukrainians included soldiers, sergeants and officers from different frontline areas, as well as two civilians who had been captured in the southern port of Mariupol taken by the Russian troops in 2022.

Pictures released by Zelenskyy showed dozens of men sitting in a bus, some of them wrapped in Ukraine’s national blue and yellow flags.

“We are working to free everyone from Russian captivity,” Zelenskyy said in a statement. “We do not forget anyone.”

Zelenskyy said that those freed from Russian captivity included defenders of Snake Island off the Black Sea port of Odesa, which was seized by Russia in the opening days of its invasion, as well as troops who defended the city of Mariupol, which was captured by Moscow’s forces early in the war after a nearly three-month siege.

In Moscow, the Defence Ministry said that Russian servicemen were first taken to the territory of Russia’s neighbour and ally Belarus, where they received “psychological and medical assistance” before moving to Russia.

Russia and Ukraine have conducted dozens of such prisoner exchanges during the nearly three-year war.

The prisoner exchange came as U.S. President Joe Biden announced Monday that the United States will send nearly $2.5 billion US more in weapons to Ukraine as his administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before president-elect Donald Trump takes office.