Russia and Ukraine exchange POWs, civilians

MOSCOW (AFP): Russia and Ukraine each sent back more prisoners of war on Sunday in the latest in a series of exchanges that has seen hundreds of POWs released this year, the two sides said.

Large-scale prisoner exchanges were the only tangible result of three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul between May and July.

They remain one of the few areas of cooperation between the two countries since Russia’s offensive began in 2022.

“On August 24, 146 Russian servicemen were returned from the territory controlled” by Kyiv, the Russian defense ministry said on Telegram.

“In exchange, 146 prisoners of war of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were transferred” to Ukraine, it added. Ukraine did not confirm any figures for the release.

Russia also said that “eight citizens of the Russian Federation — residents of the Kursk region, illegally detained” by Kyiv were also returned.

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August last year, seizing hundreds of square kilometers (miles) of territory in a major setback for the Kremlin.

Russia deployed thousands of troops from its ally North Korea as part of a counterattack, but did not fully reclaim the region until April.

Among the Ukrainians released on Sunday was journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Khyliuk “was kidnapped in the Kyiv region in March 2022. He is finally home in Ukraine,” Zelensky said on social media.

Also freed was former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko, “who spent more than three years in captivity,” Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak wrote on X.

“In 2022, he was on the list for return, but Volodymyr voluntarily refused to be exchanged in favor of a seriously ill prisoner with whom he was sharing a cell in a Russian prison,” Yermak said.