Ukraine and Russia are each exchanging 95 prisoners of war under the latest agreement

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Ukraine and Russia have carried out one of their largest prisoner of war exchanges – a total of 190 people – following negotiations mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

Ukrainian prisoners of war were filmed arriving in buses at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Wednesday before being draped in national flags and chanting “Glory to Ukraine, glory to heroes.” Footage released by Ukraine’s Human Rights Commission also showed several soldiers having emotional phone conversations with their families. It was the first time they had spoken to relatives since their capture. Another man was seen collapsing to the ground, crying.

Footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry also showed soldiers returning to Russia, although they appeared less relieved about their release.

The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (CHTP) reported that many of the returning soldiers bore traces of injuries sustained in custody and suffered from “chronic diseases that require long-term treatment.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the UAE for its help in the exchange. “No matter how difficult it may be, we are looking for everyone who may be in captivity,” he wrote on the messenger app Telegram. “We must bring everyone back.”

The CHTP reported that among those exchanged were 23 people who had defended the southern city of Mariupol, which was captured by the Russians in May 2022. Thirteen of them had holed up in the Azovstal steel plant, which had been razed to the ground by constant shelling. One of these men was a volunteer who was captured during an evacuation mission after the Russians surrounded the steel plant.

This is the 54th prisoner exchange since Vladimir Putin’s invasion began in February 2022 and the third in seven weeks. A total of 3,405 Ukrainians were repatriated from Russia.

“Now the returning soldiers will be given food, clean clothes, examined by doctors and prescribed the necessary treatment and rehabilitation,” Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets wrote on Telegram.

Earlier this year, Russia claimed that Ukraine had shot down a transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, but provided no evidence. The Russian Defense Ministry called the incident a terrorist attack but refused to allow independent investigators to look into what happened. The incident sparked fears that Russia might suspend the prisoner exchange until President Vladimir Putin, as quoted by state media outlet Tass, suggested such a move was unlikely because “we need to bring our own people home.”

A few months later, in May, Russian human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalova, again quoted by Tass, claimed that they would suspend the prisoner exchange for several months. She cited “false demands” from Kyiv as the reason for the alleged suspension.