More than 470 prisoners of war return home on both sides after exchange deals stalled in the second half of 2023.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the largest release of captives since the Russian invasion began in February 2022.
Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that 230 of their prisoners were freed, while Russia said 248 of its soldiers were returned after mediation by the United Arab Emirates.
While the two sides have conducted several exchanges during the war, exchange agreements stalled in the second half of last year. The latest exchange was the first in almost five months.
“More than 200 of our soldiers and civilians have been returned from Russian captivity,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in a post on the Telegram messaging app that included a video of uniformed men celebrating.
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said 230 Ukrainian prisoners, including six civilians, had been freed, marking what he said was the 49th exchange between the two sides.
kyiv said this was the largest troop exchange documented so far.
Some of the Ukrainians had been held since 2022. Among them were some who fought in historic battles for Ukraine’s Snake Island and the port city of Mariupol.
The Russian Defense Ministry said 248 of its soldiers had been returned after “complex” negotiations by the United Arab Emirates. Russian officials did not offer other details of the exchange.
Attacks on Belgorod
Also on Wednesday, Russia said it shot down 12 missiles fired at one of its southern regions bordering Ukraine.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said the situation “remains tense” after Ukraine launched repeated missile and drone attacks.
While there have been no reports on the number of casualties from the latest attack, Gladkov said authorities were evacuating residents near possibly unexploded ordnance and that bomb disposal units had been called in to assess the danger.
Defense Ministry technicians were working to remove an unexploded shell and about 600 residents of 323 homes within a 500-meter (550-yard) radius had been evacuated, he said.
Gladkov added that several other villages were also hit in Wednesday’s attack and a power line was cut.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukraine fired six Tochka-U ballistic missiles and six guided missiles from a Vilkha heavy multiple rocket launcher.
Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Belgorod over the New Year period after Russia launched some of its biggest attacks on Ukraine since the war began.
On Tuesday, kyiv said Moscow had launched more than 300 attack drones and missiles of various types across Ukraine since Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised that kyiv’s attacks on Belgorod “will not go unpunished.”
