Ukraine and Russia exchange a hundred prisoners each

Image from a video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry after the prisoner exchange, Monday, April 10, 2023. AP

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Ukraine and Russia carried out a new prisoner exchange on Monday (April 10th) as fighting continues to rage in the centre of the city of Bakhmut. In total, Kiev managed to bring back a hundred soldiers, most of them soldiers who had participated in the main battles since the beginning of the Russian invasion.

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With our correspondent in Kiev, Stéphane Siohan

Monday marked the first prisoner exchange between warring parties in a month, as Russia's winter offensive, which began in January, draws to a close, and the Ukrainian military prepares for spring counterattack operations.

The Ukrainian authorities have recovered one hundred prisoners, 80 men and 20 women, all soldiers, and among them nine officers, fighters who had been taken prisoner in Bakhmut, but also earlier last year, in Hostomel, Mariupol, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant or Snake Island in the Black Sea.

Wounded and sick

According to the office of the Ukrainian President, the negotiations prior to his release were difficult, and several of the prisoners are in very poor health, injured, sick, some have also been tortured.

In exchange, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry handed over 106 prisoners to Russia, including the only female Russian fighter officially held prisoner on the Ukrainian side at that time. Soldiers who were "in danger of death," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The last prisoner exchange between Kiev and Moscow was on March 7, when Ukraine recovered 130 of its military personnel and Russia 90. In total, since the beginning of the war, Kiev has managed through a contact group to bring back to Ukraine about 1,500 of its captured soldiers.

► READ ALSO: Ukraine and Russia accused of "summary executions" of prisoners of war by the UN

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• Ukraine
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• Defense
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