For the first time since February, Ukraine and the Russian Federation exchanged prisoners yesterday (video)

During the prisoner exchange, 75 Ukrainians returned to their homeland, and the same number of Russians returned from Ukraine.

The countries exchanged prisoners of war for the first time since February. Ukrainians met their compatriots, among whom, according to the Coordination Headquarters, there were 70 men and five women. According to the Ukrainian side, at least a third of those who returned were wounded, seriously ill or disabled. They were captured in the Kharkov, Kiev, Kherson, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Sumy directions.

This time, 37 representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were released from captivity, including 13 members of the Navy and two representatives of the Air Force. 21 National Guardsmen were also released from captivity. Seven border guards, six Teroborans and four Ukrainian civilians are returning home. 19 defenders of Zmeiny Island, 14 military personnel guarding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, as well as ten defenders of Mariupol were returned to their native land.

In the video you can see a very young fair-haired girl – she is only 24, she is from Mariupol, and she was in captivity for 2 years. Before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, Maryana Chechelyuk lived in Mariupol and worked there as an investigator. The girl’s family did not have time to leave the city before the start of massive enemy shelling. At first they hid in basements, looked for water and tried to survive. On March 25, 2022, during another air raid, Maryana and her sister Alina ran to the Azovstal shelter.

According to the girls’ father, Vitaly, on May 1, 2022, the first evacuation of civilians from Azovstal was organized, where his daughters also ended up. Representatives of the UN and the Red Cross promised to take people to the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities – to Zaporozhye. Instead, they were taken to the village of Bezymyanoye, occupied by the Russian army, to be filtered by the Russian military.

“They called us on the phone and said that if we don’t pick up our youngest daughter within 24 hours, she will go to an orphanage in Siberia (Alina’s parents managed to take her out),” the man shared in a conversation with reporters. Maryana was sent to a pre-trial detention center in Donetsk. Further, the parents were able to learn about the fate of their eldest daughter only from prisoners of war returning home. According to her father, after the Donetsk pre-trial detention center, the girl was sent to the notorious Olenevka. Subsequently, she was allegedly transported to Taganrog. Then – to Kamyshin, Volgograd region, and later – again to Taganrog. And finally she returned to her homeland.

“I can’t believe we’re home,” says one former prisoner. “We’ve finally been exchanged. It’s beyond words.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Ukraine, in turn, also transferred 75 people to the Russian side as part of a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates.

This is the first exchange of prisoners of war between Moscow and Kiev in almost four months and the 52nd since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. To date, a total of more than 6 thousand people from both sides have returned home from captivity. As of now, 3,210 defenders of Ukraine have already been released from captivity by the occupiers. The Coordination Headquarters expressed special gratitude to the United Arab Emirates for its active participation in the implementation of this exchange.

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