A still image from video, released by Russia’s Defence Ministry, shows what it said to be captured Russian service personnel in a bus following the newest exchange of prisoners of war at an unknown location in the middle of Russia-Ukraine conflict, on this image taken from handout footage released February 4, 2023.
Russian Defence Ministry | Via Reuters
Dozens of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war have returned home following a prisoner swap, officials on each side said Saturday.
Top Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said in a Telegram post that 116 Ukrainians were freed.
He said the released POWs include troops who held out in Mariupol during Moscow’s monthslong siege that reduced the southern port city to ruins, in addition to guerrilla fighters from the Kherson region and snipers captured through the ongoing fierce battles for the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Russian defense officials, meanwhile, announced that 63 Russian troops had returned from Ukraine following the swap, including some “special category” prisoners whose release was secured following mediation by the United Arab Emirates.
A press release issued Saturday by the Russian Defense Ministry didn’t provide details about these “special category” captives.
At the least three civilians have been killed in Ukraine over the past 24 hours as Russian forces struck nine regions within the country’s south, north and east, in accordance with reports on Ukrainian TV by regional governors on Saturday morning.
Two people were killed and 14 others wounded in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region by Russian shelling and missile strikes, local Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram update on Saturday morning.
The casualty toll included a person who was killed and 7 others who were wounded Friday after Russian missiles slammed into Toretsk, a town within the Donetsk region. Kyrylenko said that 34 houses, two kindergartens, an outpatient clinic, a library, a cultural center and other buildings were damaged within the strike.
Seven teenagers received shrapnel wounds after an anti-personnel mine exploded late on Friday within the northeastern city of Izium, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. He said they were all hospitalized but their lives weren’t in peril.
Elsewhere, regional Ukrainian officials reported overnight shelling by Russia of border settlements within the northern Sumy region, in addition to the town of Marhanets, which neighbors the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Kyiv has long accused Moscow of using the plant, which Russian forces seized early within the war, as a base for launching attacks on Ukrainian-held territory across the Dnieper river.
