The Kiev government announced on Thursday that it had secured the release of 30 Ukrainian prisoners in a new exchange with Russia, five days after the exchange of 12 Ukrainian soldiers and 14 civilians, but did not specify the counterparts with Moscow.
” Today, on the order of President Volodimir Zelensky, a fourth exchange of prisoners took place. Five officers and 17 military personnel, as well as eight civilians, including one woman, entered the exchange. In total, 30 of our citizens are returning home today,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
Vereshchuk did not specify the number of Russian prisoners released in return. The group of liberated persons is now safe and returning to Ukrainian territory, according to these sources.
On Thursday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense published in a statement that two army pilots, captured by Moscow last month and taken to Russia, were released.
In the statement, they are identified as Ivan Pepelyashko and Oleksiy Chyzh, captured in early March in a village in the northern Chernigov region of Ukraine.
According to Chyzh, quoted in the ministry's note, the Russian army “forced them to shoot propaganda videos (...) If we refused, the Russians threatened to stop giving medical care to our comrades,” he said.
It was not explained whether these pilots were part of the exchange announced by Vereshchuk.
Ukraine carried out its first prisoner exchange with Russia at the end of March, a month after the start of the conflict, when ten Russian soldiers were exchanged for ten Ukrainian soldiers, and eleven Russian civilian sailors, rescued from a ship that sank in the Black Sea near Odessa, for 19 Ukrainian civilians captured by the Russians.
On April 1, Ukraine reported the release of 86 soldiers captured by Russia, in an exchange for Russian soldiers whose number was not specified.
Kiev announced on April 9 the “third exchange” of prisoners, which allowed the release of 12 Ukrainian soldiers and 14 civilians.
(with information from AFP)
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