Russia and Ukraine exchange 95 prisoners of war each in their latest exchange | WJHL

HANNA ARHIROVA, Associated Press

34 mins ago

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, Ukrainian prisoners of war, wrapped in national flags, pose for a photo after a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine and Russia have each exchanged 95 prisoners of war, officials from both countries said Wednesday, three weeks after their last exchange and as part of occasional agreements to send captured soldiers home.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Russian Defense Ministry reported on the exchange.

The prisoner of war exchange was the 54th since Russia launched a large-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

Representatives of the warring countries only meet to exchange their dead and prisoners of war after long preparations and diplomacy. Neither Ukraine nor Russia disclose how many prisoners of war there are in total.

Zelensky said in a post on the Telegram messaging service that the United Arab Emirates had again brokered the agreements. The UAE has said it maintains friendly relations with both Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelensky published photos of mostly gaunt soldiers with shaved heads and wrapped in Ukrainian flags, apparently standing in an open field.

“No matter how difficult it may be, we are looking for everyone who may be in captivity. We must bring everyone back,” Zelensky wrote in the post.

Among the released Ukrainians were some who had spent more than two years in captivity. They were captured in Mariupol, during Russia’s first offensive in the Kyiv region and during fighting in the eastern Luhansk region, the country’s prisoner of war coordination headquarters said.

It was said that since the outbreak of the war, just over 3,400 people, both civilians and military personnel, had returned from Russian captivity.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the released Russian soldiers would be flown to Moscow for medical treatment and rehabilitation.

According to the UN, most Ukrainian prisoners of war suffer routine medical neglect, severe and systematic ill-treatment and even torture during their detention. There are also isolated reports of ill-treatment of Russian soldiers, mostly during capture or transport to internment camps.

In January last year, Russia and Ukraine swapped most of their paths in the wake of the release of hundreds of prisoners of war.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.