KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine have exchanged about 200 prisoners of struggle every, the international locations stated Wednesday, regardless of tensions stemming from final week’s crash of a army transport airplane that Moscow claimed was carrying Ukrainian POWs and was shot down by Kyiv’s forces.
After the Jan. 24 crash of the Il-76 airplane in Russia’s Belgorod area close to the border with Ukraine, some Russian officers had publicly questioned the potential for future POW swaps.
Russia’s Defense Ministry stated the international locations exchanged 195 POWs every. After the assertion was launched, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated 207 Ukrainians had been freed. There was no quick clarification for the completely different figures.
“We remember each Ukrainian in captivity. Both warriors and civilians. We must bring all of them back. We are working on it,” Zelenskyy stated on X, previously Twitter.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s ombudsman for human rights, stated on social media that it was the fiftieth such trade because the starting of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost two years in the past, with a complete of three,035 POWs repatriated.
Among the Ukrainians launched had been members of the armed forces, National Guard, Border Service and nationwide police, stated Andrii Yermak, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office. He added that a few of them had been captured whereas defending Mariupol, Azovstal, and Snake Island.
The Russian army stated, with out offering particulars or proof, that the Russian POWs who had been swapped Wednesday “faced deadly danger in captivity” and can be flown to Moscow for therapy and rehabilitation.
Moscow had stated 65 Ukrainian POWs had been aboard the army transport that crashed Jan. 24. Ukrainian officers confirmed {that a} swap was attributable to happen that day and was referred to as off, however stated it has seen no proof the airplane was carrying the POWs.
Meeting together with his marketing campaign workers in Moscow as he ramps up his run for reelection, President Vladimir Putin stated Russian investigators concluded that Ukraine used U.S.-supplied Patriot air protection techniques to shoot down the transport airplane. Ukrainian officers didn’t deny the airplane’s downing however didn’t take duty and referred to as for a global investigation.
Putin stated Russia wouldn’t simply welcome however would “insist” on a global inquiry on what he described as a “crime” by Ukraine.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com”