Russia and Ukraine conduct massive POW swap – Moscow

Ukraine has freed 150 Russian soldiers from captivity as part of a major prisoner exchange, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said in a Telegram post on Monday. Kiev received an equal number of its troops as well, it added.

The swap deal was mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the ministry stated. All of the freed Russian soldiers were initially transferred to Belarus, where they were provided with the necessary medical and psychological assistance and an opportunity to contact their relatives and loved ones, the statement said.

The soldiers are now to be moved to Russia for further treatment and rehabilitation, the ministry added.

It is the first such exchange since October, when the two sides exchanged 95 servicemen each. That swap deal was also mediated by the UAE. In November, Moscow and Kiev also exchanged the remains of fallen soldiers, with Ukraine receiving 563 bodies and Russia 37.

Later on Monday, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky confirmed the exchange, but claimed that almost 200 Ukrainians had been returned. “The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us. And today is one of those days: our team managed to return 189 Ukrainians home,” he wrote on Telegram.

Moscow had previously accused Kiev of being reluctant to take back its soldiers from custody. In early December, Russian human rights ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova released a list of servicemen being held, whom she said the Ukrainian officials refused to consider for a prisoner exchange.

“Zelensky does not need 630 Ukrainian citizens who were captured. He abandoned them,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on the publication at that time.

In mid-December, the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban suggested mediating a major prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kiev that could involve some 700 soldiers from each side. He later stated that Ukraine had rejected his proposal.

An aide to Vladimir Zelensky then called Orban “a meddlesome messenger” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that “no one” who supposedly works for peace needs such people.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was willing to accept Orban’s proposal and even contacted the Hungarian embassy with some relevant proposals of its own.