On Ukraine's 33rd Independence Day, 115 Ukrainian soldiers were released from Russian captivity and returned home. These soldiers, representing the National Guard, Armed Forces, Navy, and State Border Guard Service, were welcomed back as part of a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia.
This marks the first exchange since the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched an offensive in the Kursk region and the 55th exchange overall. This offensive has captured hundreds of enemy soldiers in one of Russia’s worst defeats of the war
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked all involved parties, including the UAE, for securing the deal.
"Thanks to every department that replenishes our exchange fund. This brings the release of our military and our civilians from Russian captivity closer. Thanks to our team and partners, the UAE, for bringing our people back home," he said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense also confirmed the exchange, stating that 115 Russian servicemen captured in the Kursk region were returned in exchange for the Ukrainian prisoners.
Russia's Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatiana Moskalkova, later clarified that "all of the released soldiers" were conscripts captured in "mainly the Kursk region." These soldiers are currently in Belarus for treatment and rehabilitation before being transported back to Russia.
The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported that all military personnel who returned to the country were also conscripts captured in the first months of the full-scale invasion.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 20, 2024
The group also includes three border guards, 82 defenders of Mariupol, six members of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant garrison, and others who defended various regions of Ukraine.
Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region has, by almost all accounts, including Russian, captured hundreds of Russian service personnel in battles and through mass surrenders without fighting. The Ukrainian government has been tight-lipped about operational details.
Still, senior officials said Russian soldiers taken into Ukrainian custody over the past ten days number at least in the high hundreds.
Unconfirmed Ukrainian soldier and media accounts have mostly placed the total number of Russian service personnel taken captive at between 1,000 and 2,000 men, with the figure climbing daily.
The last time Moscow saw hundreds of its soldiers taken prisoner in combat was in 1996, during the First Chechen War, when guerillas in a surprise offensive surrounded and overran dozens of Russian unit bases and field positions deployed around the Chechen capital city Grozny.
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