More than 200 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have returned home in a prisoner swap, the warring countries said Monday.
Russia's Defence Ministry said 106 Russian soldiers were released from Ukrainian custody as part of an agreement with Ukraine.
He added that the latest of the sporadic prisoner swaps in the war that started in February 2022 was "not an easy one." He did not elaborate. According to Ukrainian news reports, one of the women prisoners is Valeriia Karpilenko, a border guard who had helped defend Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant. Last May, she married a Ukrainian soldier in the steel plant's basement while Russian forces surrounded the complex. Her husband was killed three days later.
Such exchanges represent one of the few areas of co-operation between Ukraine and Russia. The two sides have returned hundreds of each other's soldiers, as well as the bodies of fallen troops, since the war began.
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