Over 1,300 prisoners have been returned ukraine As Russian troops invaded the pro-Western country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday.
Zelensky was speaking after a fresh exchange of prisoners with Russian and pro-Russian forces.
“After today’s exchange, there are already 1,319 heroes who have returned home,” Zelensky said on Instagram, posting a photo of a few dozen men holding Ukrainian flags.
The Ukrainian leader said, “We will not stop until we get all our people back.”
Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, said 50 Ukrainians had returned home.
“We are returning the defenders of Mariupol and Azovstal, we are returning the prisoners who were in Olenivka and those who were wounded especially during the fighting in the Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhya regions,” Yermak said on a telegram. “
In July, dozens of Ukrainian soldiers were killed after a bombing of the Moscow-controlled Olenivka prison in the eastern Donetsk region. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attacks.
Ukrainians held at the facility included members of the Azov Battalion, which defended the Azovstal Steel Works in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol before surrendering to Moscow.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that it had received 50 prisoners of war “who were in mortal danger in captivity”.
In October, at a meeting with the Red Cross, Russia said it held about 6,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war.
read all breaking news Here