Russia and Ukraine exchanged 372 prisoners of war, including nearly two dozen severely wounded Ukrainian soldiers, authorities in Moscow and Kyiv said Wednesday.
President Vladimir Putin had announced Tuesday night that the exchange would take place, with each side releasing 175 POWs. He also said Russia would return an additional 23 wounded Ukrainian soldiers as a “goodwill gesture.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that it released 22 wounded Ukrainian soldiers but did not explain why the figure was one soldier less than what the Kremlin promised the day before.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later confirmed the exchange and shared images of servicemen, some in crutches, wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
He said the returnees were members of various military branches, territorial defense forces and border guards who had fought across southern, eastern and northeastern Ukraine, as well as in southwestern Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said the 197-for-175 exchange brought the number of Ukrainian soldiers who returned home since the full-scale invasion to more than 4,300.
Russia’s military credited the United Arab Emirates, which has brokered previous Russian-Ukrainian prisoner swaps since the war began in 2022, for mediating the latest exchange.
It said Russian soldiers freed in the swap were undergoing psychological and medical evaluations in neighboring Belarus before returning to Russia for treatment and rehabilitation.
The prisoner exchange took place less than 24 hours after Putin, in talks with Trump, agreed to a 30-day suspension of attacks on energy infrastructure.
Zelensky said he supported the limited ceasefire but argued that Putin’s refusal to agree to a broader U.S.-proposed deal showed the Russian leader was not “ready” for peace and still aimed to “weaken” Ukraine.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of “undermining” the truce by launching a drone strike on an oil depot in the southern Krasnodar region overnight.
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