By Oyintari Ben
According to officials from both nations, Moscow and Kyiv exchanged 218 prisoners, including 108 Ukrainian women, in one of the largest prisoner exchanges of the war thus far.
12 civilians were among the women released on Monday, according to Andriy Yermak, the chief of the Ukrainian president’s administration.
Another significant exchange of prisoners of war took place today, according to Yermak’s post on the Telegram messenger app. “… We released 108 captive women. It was the first all-female exchange in Ukraine.
37 of the ladies, he claimed, had been held captive after Russian soldiers seized the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol in May.
A port city in southeast Ukraine called Mariupol endured weeks of Russian assault. Under its Azovstal steel mill, a sizable network of tunnels served as a focal point for resistance.
Ukraine doesn’t leave anyone behind, according to Yermak. He claimed that some of the swapped individuals were mother-daughter pairs who had been kept together.
Yermak’s images showed hundreds of ladies getting off white buses while others were dressed in coats and military fatigues.
According to the Coordinating Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the oldest woman is 62 and the youngest is 21.
The exchange was confirmed by the Russian defense ministry, which also said that 110 Russians were released, including 72 seamen from commercial vessels detained since February. It stated that everyone who was brought back would be transported to Moscow and given medical and psychological support.
Some of the women who were freed, according to the interior ministry of Ukraine, had been imprisoned since 2019 after being detained by pro-Moscow authorities in eastern regions.
The most recent exchange took place following prisoner exchanges last week, during which the two sides twice swapped scores of men.
