A relative hugs a Ukrainian prisoner of war after a swap with Russia in Chernihiv Region on 13 September. Photo: Maxym Marusenko / NurPhoto via AFP
Russia and Ukraine have conducted a major exchange of prisoners - 206 in all - in their second such swap in two days, following negotiations mediated by the United Arab Emirates, officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that all 103 Ukrainians returned were from the military - 82 soldiers and privates and 21 officers.
Russian Defence Ministry said that the 103 Russian soldiers exchanged had been taken prisoner in the border Kursk region where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion in August.
"Our people are home," Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app.
"We have successfully brought back another 103 warriors from Russian captivity to Ukraine."
Zelenskiy posted pictures of servicemen wrapped in the national blue and yellow flag, hugging each other, talking on mobile phones and posing for group photographs at an undisclosed location.
The exchange was mediated by the UAE, Emirati state news agency WAM said. It was the country's eighth such mediation since the start of 2024, it said.
Kyiv and Moscow have frequently exchanged prisoners since Russia's invasion in February 2022, and Saturday's swap was the third since Ukraine began a cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk region in early August.
Ukrainian officials have previously said its troops had captured at least 600 Russian soldiers during the incursion, and that this would help it secure the return of captured Ukrainians.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's ombudsman, said the majority of the freed Ukrainians had been in Russian captivity since the early days of the invasion.
He posted a short video on the Telegram messaging app showing the servicemen standing in front of a bus and shouting "Glory to Ukraine."
Lubinets said that Kyiv had so far secured the return of 3672 Ukrainians in 57 exchanges.
Ukrainian prisoners of war celebrate following a swap with Russia in Chernihiv Region, Ukraine, on September 13, 2024. Photo: Maxym Marusenko / NurPhoto via AFP
At least five killed in Russian shelling, governors say
Meanwhile, Russian shelling has killed at least five people in three attacks on the south, southeast and east of Ukraine on Saturday, regional Ukrainian governors said.
In the Zaporizhzhia region in southeast Ukraine, governor Ivan Fedorov said Russian shells struck an agricultural enterprise in the town of Huliaipole, killing three people.
"All the dead are employees of the enterprise," Fedorov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Reuters could not verify details of these latest attacks in the war in Ukraine.
Shelling killed a fourth person in the southern region of Kherson, governor Oleksandr Prokudin, said.
"A 60-year-old man who suffered serious injuries this afternoon died in hospital," Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
In Kharkiv region, Russia struck the village of Pisky-Radkivski with the high-speed Tornado-S multiple rocket launch system, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram.
The body of a 72-year-old woman was retrieved from the rubble, and two civilians, a man and a woman, were taken to hospital, he added.
