This was reported by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We are bringing Ukrainians home, to Ukraine. A new exchange — 84 people. These are both military and civilians. Almost all of them need medical assistance and significant rehabilitation”, - the statement reads.
According to Zelensky, among the civilians freed today are those who had been held by russians since 2014, 2016, and 2017. Also among the released soldiers are defenders of Mariupol.
As reported by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 33 military personnel and 51 civilian Ukrainians have been freed from russian captivity.
“The peculiarity of today’s exchange is that we managed to free civilians and military Ukrainians who had been detained in temporarily occupied territories even before the full-scale invasion and illegally sentenced to long prison terms — from 10 to 18 years. One of the freed had been in captivity for 4,013 days — he was captured in the Donetsk oblast back in 2014”, - the headquarters noted.
Also returning to their homeland are Ukrainians captured and convicted by the occupiers between 2016 and 2021. Among those released are three women from the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. One of them is a primary school teacher deprived of freedom in 2019.
Among the civilians freed today is a 27-year-old man who was illegally imprisoned by the occupiers in 2016. At that time, he was only 18 years old.
In addition to civilians, returning home are also defenders from the Mariupol garrison, servicemen of the Naval Forces, and the State Border Guard Service. Ten officers have been freed from captivity.
Two pairs of brothers are returning from russian captivity, who had been held in detention since March and April 2022. Most of the freed civilians and military have health problems and disabilities.
The youngest of those freed is 26 years old, and the oldest is 74, of which the last 7 years (since 2018) he spent in a russian prison.
