Kyiv, Moscow swap prisoners of war, ceasefire shaky
|
Ukraine and Russia have exchanged 175 prisoners of war each in their latest swap, officials from both countries say, as a ceasefire to mark Orthodox Easter got off to a shaky start with alleged breaches on both sides.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine had brought home 175 servicemen and seven civilians from Russian captivity.
He said the Ukrainian servicemen had defended the country on different fronts from the east to the south and most of them had been in captivity in Russia since 2022.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said the United Arab Emirates had mediated the exchange.
Russia took back 175 servicemen and also seven civilians originally from the Kursk region, the ministry said.
During more than four years of war, Kyiv and Moscow have carried out regular prisoner exchanges.
They are among the few concrete results to emerge from several rounds of US-brokered peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, which remain stalled over the issue of territory.
As both Ukraine and Russia celebrate Orthodox Easter this weekend, the countries have agreed on a short, 32-hour ceasefire to mark the holiday.
Ukraine’s military said on Saturday it had documented 469 Russian violations of the ceasefire after it went into effect in the afternoon.
“After 1600 (Kyiv time), 469 violations of the ceasefire regime were recorded,” the General Staff of Ukraine’s military wrote on social media.
“Specifically, 22 enemy assault actions, 153 shelling incidents, 19 strikes by attack drones … and 275 strikes by (First-Person View) drones.”
Meanwhile, governors of two Russian border regions said on Saturday that Ukrainian drones had attacked targets in the Kursk and Belgorod regions, injuring five people.
Alexander Khinshtein, governor of the Kursk region, wrote on the state-backed messenger service MAX that a Ukrainian drone had struck a petrol station in the town of Lgov, injuring three people, including a child.
Khinshtein said the attack took place after the start of the truce.
In the adjacent Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said two people were injured in Ukrainian drone attacks.
Gladkov, writing on Telegram, said a man and woman were injured in attacks in Shebekino and Grayvoron, two small towns just inside the border.
He also said Ukrainian forces had shelled Shebekino, damaging homes and other buildings.
Reuters