But in a surprise announcement on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said 195 Russian soldiers had been exchanged for “exactly” the same number of Ukrainian soldiers.
“The liberated service members will be transported by military transport aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces to Moscow for treatment and rehabilitation,” the ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile, in what appears to contradict Moscow's figures, the Ukrainian Coordination Body for the Treatment of Prisoners of War announced on Wednesday that 207 Ukrainian prisoners had been released, including 27 officers and fighters captured during the Battle of Azovstal, a steel plant in the city of Mariupol, which Russia took control of. . Occupy now.
The coordination headquarters said that at least 36 of the released Ukrainians were suffering from serious injuries or illnesses.
Andriy Ermak, chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, confirmed the swap, posting photos of the released soldiers wrapped in Ukrainian flags on the Telegram app.
“This is the second major exchange after a long break. We continue to work and fulfill the President’s mission of repatriating everyone,” Yermak wrote. “We have a huge mission, many of our people are still in captivity, and we are working to repatriate them… Thank you to everyone who He waited and came back. Ukrainians are the highest value.
Yermak added that those released included soldiers, police officers, and members of the National Guard and the police, who were arrested in Mariupol, Sneek Island, Kherson and Kharkiv.
The exchange took place without any new information about who specifically was on board the Russian military plane that was shot down last week over the Belgorod region in western Russia, near the Ukrainian border.
Russia said all 74 people on board were killed, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew members and three other individuals.
The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of committing a “terrorist act” and requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the incident. The hearing was held in New York, but no new information emerged then either.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said, “The attack on the plane was a deliberate and conscious act.” He added, “The terrorist attack clearly shows the Kiev regime's inability to negotiate.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied on Wednesday that the destruction of the plane would affect future exchanges.
Will this stop the exchanges or not? “We will not stop exchanges, we need to gather our men,” Putin said in a televised political meeting related to the presidential elections in March, in which he is seeking a fifth term.
Putin also confirmed on Wednesday that the plane was shot down by the US Patriot air defense system, and pointed to possible plans to create a demilitarized zone that could protect Russian territory from long-range missiles supplied by the West.
The United States prevented Ukraine from using donated weapons to strike targets on Russian territory. The plane was close enough to Ukraine that it could have been shot down by any number of weapons available to the Ukrainian military.
The mention of the demilitarized zone indicates that Putin wants to strengthen his control over the Ukrainian lands now occupied by his forces. In violation of international law, he announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – to Russia, in addition to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014.
“This line should be at a distance from our territory that ensures security, taking into account long-range weapons made abroad, which the Ukrainian authorities use to bomb peaceful cities,” Putin said.
Zelensky pledged that Ukraine would expel Russian forces from all of its sovereign territory.
