August 24, 2024, 9:40 AM
August 24, 2024, 9:40 AM
Russia and Ukraine announced on Saturday (24.08.2024) that they had exchanged 115 prisoners of war between the two sides, two weeks after kyiv launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
“Another 115 of our defenders returned home today,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said that “115 Russian soldiers taken prisoner in the Kursk region have been returned” and are currently in Belarus, where they are receiving “psychological and medical assistance” before their return to Russia.
Both countries thanked United Arab Emirateswho claimed to have mediated in the exchange and “managed to negotiate a new swap,” according to that country’s foreign ministry.
Zelensky specified that the exchanged prisoners were “National Guard soldiers, the Armed Forces, the Navy (and) the State Border Guard Service.”
Following the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region On August 6, kyiv said it had taken hundreds of Russian soldiers captive.
kyiv and Moscow had already exchanged prisoners since the beginning of the Russian invasion from Ukraine in February 2022.