Wounded and Seriously Ill Ukrainian POWs Return Home

Ukraine and Russia conducted a new prisoner exchange on Friday, June 20, bringing home wounded and seriously ill Ukrainian personnel, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced.

“Most of the soldiers returning today from Russian captivity were held for more than two years. Now they are finally home,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

The freed defenders include soldiers from Mariupol, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv regions. They represent various branches of the Armed Forces (AFU), including the Navy, Ground Forces, Territorial Defense, Airborne Assault Forces, Unmanned Systems Forces, as well as the Border Guard and National Guard.

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) reported on Telegram that all those released suffer from serious injuries or significant health conditions, including: epilepsy, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, vision impairment, musculoskeletal disorders, hernias, chronic digestive diseases, and severe weight loss.

All the released Ukrainians were ordinary soldiers or non-commissioned officers, including fighters from Mariupol who have been held captive since 2022.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters emphasized that the exchange process is still ongoing, and the final number of those released will be announced once all stages are completed.

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Ukraine’s Human Rights Ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said that the oldest released prisoner is 60 years old.

This latest prisoner exchange follows the second round of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, held on June 2 in Istanbul.

During the meeting, both sides agreed to exchange all wounded soldiers and prisoners under the age of 25 – more than 1,000 from each side. Moscow also pledged to return the bodies of 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the war.

Neither side disclosed how many soldiers were freed in Friday’s latest exchange following the June 2 agreement.

Just a day earlier, on June 19, Russia and Ukraine conducted another prisoner exchange. Ukraine said that many of the returning soldiers had been in Russian captivity since the early months of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Russia’s Defense Ministry also confirmed the swap, posting photos of released Russian soldiers wrapped in national flags, cheering and waving.

On June 9, the two countries made an exchange of prisoners under the age of 25. The additional exchanges that took place on June 10, 12, and 14, focused on the return of injured captives. Russia has also transferred the remains of more than 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers over several phases.

The Istanbul talks offered rare signs of limited cooperation between the two sides, but no major breakthroughs. Russia rejected Ukraine’s call for an unconditional ceasefire and instead demanded that Kyiv surrender more territory and sever military ties with the West.