The operation is delicate.
With their heads covered in black balaclavas, five Russian soldiers stagger out of a Ukrainian van, according to video footage of a prisoner exchange.
Vitaliï Danila's hand trembles when, a few moments later, he films himself in front of the dazed faces of the five Ukrainian captives he has just freed, against the five Russians.
The head of the traffic police in the Mykolaiv region (southern Ukraine), concluded the sixteenth exchange of prisoners without incident, on the southern front of the war, eight months after the start of the Russian invasion.
"Anything can go wrong"
“When there is a battle, you see tanks firing, and you are standing in a field making an exchange…”, says Vitaliï Danila.
“Anything can go wrong,” he says.
“We just have to avoid opening fire on each other.
Everyone must make it out alive.
From time to time, the mainstream media hit the headlines reporting major prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine.
Like the 200 Ukrainian fighters who survived the Russian siege of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, or the 100 or so women who returned from Russian captivity last week.
The more common exchanges, of only a few prisoners, are the subject of less publicity.
World
War in Ukraine: Russia bombs kyiv and exchanges prisoners
World
War in Ukraine: 108 women freed after prisoner swap with Russia
War in Ukraine
Russia
World
Prisoners
Kremlin