Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war on Thursday, officials from both countries said, the latest round of swaps under an agreement struck in Istanbul.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted images of the freed Ukrainian troops, smiling and draped in the national flag, most of whom had been held captive since the early months of Russia's February 2022 invasion, he said.
Our people are returning home from Russian captivity. These are warriors of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, and the State Border Guard Service. Most of them had been held captive since 2022.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 19, 2025
They are defenders of Ukraine who fought in the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk,… pic.twitter.com/c4Xc8iHbr7
The Ukrainian POWs exchanged on Thursday were sick or injured, according to Kyiv's coordinating council for POWs.
The Russian POWs would also be sent for treatment and rehabilitation, Moscow's defence ministry said.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia, whose talks on ending the war have yielded few results besides the exchange of prisoners or remains, provided an exact figure of how many POWs had been exchanged.
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