News from Al-Madinah: Officials from Russia and Ukraine said that the two nations exchanged 218 inmates, including 108 Ukrainian women, in what was one of the greatest prisoner exchanges in the history of the conflict.
And Andrei Yermak, director of the office of the President of Ukraine, said that among the women are the 12 civilians.
37 women were arrested after the Russian military seized control of the sizable Azovstal Steel Complex in the coastal city of Mariolol in May, he added in a post to the Telegram messaging service.
According to Yermak, the women who had been freed from their mothers and daughters were kept together.
Numerous women were seen exiting white buses in the images released by Yermak, some of whom were wearing the coats and military outsiders.
Separately, the Ukrainian Minister of Interior said that some of the freed women had been held captive since 2019 after being arrested by Kiev-aligned authorities in the country’s eastern regions.
The exchange process was confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Defense, which also noted that it had recovered 100 persons, including “72 seas from Russian civilian ships, who had been held by the Kyiv regime since February 2022.
Two Ukrainians who were included in the exchange deal, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, “voluntarily declined to return to Ukraine, indicating their wish to stay in Russia.”
Folodimir Zellinski, the president of Ukraine, asked his troops to capture additional prisoners on Monday, claiming that doing so would make it easier for the soldiers held in Russia to be released.
In a speech that evening, Putin stated: “I extend my gratitude to everyone who helped make this success possible as well as to those who continue to add detainees to our exchange box and ensure the adversaries’ capture. The more Russian detainees we have, the nearer we are to seeing our heroes free. Every soldier from Ukraine and every officer on the front lines remember it.”
Since the start of the war in February of last year, Russia and Ukraine have exchanged several captives.
Arabic.
108 Ukrainians are among the 218 convicts that Kiev and Moscow swap.
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