Russia and Ukraine exchange more prisoners of war

Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war for the fifth time on Thursday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Telegram that the swap included members of the Ukrainian army, the national guard and border troops.

According to the staff responsible for prisoner of war affairs, severely injured and seriously ill soldiers have been exchanged. The majority of those released had reportedly been in captivity for more than three years.

The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the exchange at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border.

Neither side provided information on the number of soldiers who returned home in the exchange.

Kiev and Moscow agreed during talks in Turkey in early June to exchange soldiers under the age of 25, and those who are severely injured or ill, in several stages.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that some 900 prisoners have been exchanged so far.

A third round of negotiations, set to start after June 22, will also address the continuation of the exchange of prisoners of war, alongside the fundamental question of ending the war, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. He did not specify an exact date for the talks.

Meanwhile, officials in Kiev said the bodies of Russian soldiers had also been handed over.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko claimed that Ukraine had also received dead Russians when returning thousands of soldiers’ bodies from Russia. However, in a post on Telegram, he did not specify how many such cases there were.

“The enemy is deliberately making it difficult for us to identify the dead, causing chaos and mixing the bodies of Russian soldiers with those of Ukrainians,” Klymenko charged.

Photos showed the alleged military ID and identification tag of a dead Russian soldier who had been handed over to Ukraine. There was no independent confirmation of this.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the first to publicly criticize Russia for handing over the bodies of its own soldiers to Ukraine.

Russia has handed over more than 6,000 bodies of soldiers to Ukraine in recent days. Moscow received more than 50 dead in return.

Ukraine has been resisting a full-scale Russian invasion for more than three years with Western military help.