Ukraine Returns 175 Servicemen and Seven Civilians From Captivity

Ukraine has returned 175 servicemen and seven civilians from Russian captivity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the latest phase of the exchange.

Representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, and the State Border Guard Service have returned home.

The group includes privates, sergeants, and officers who defended the country on various sections of the front.

Some of the returned soldiers participated in the defense of Mariupol and provided security for facilities at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Other freed defenders held back the enemy in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions.

Soldiers who defended the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, and Sumy regions, as well as the Kursk region, have also returned to their families.

Most of the released Ukrainians had been held captive since 2022. Among the defenders are wounded soldiers who require urgent medical care.

According to the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, the exchange took place on a ‘175 for 175’ basis, under which Ukraine handed over a similar number of people to the Russian side.

The last exchange took place on March 6—at that time, Ukraine brought back 300 servicemen and two civilians from captivity.

And prior to that, on March 5, 200 Ukrainian defenders were successfully returned home.

These two exchanges were the implementation of agreements reached during trilateral negotiations in Geneva in February.