Ukraine, Russia exchange more than 200 troops in prisoner swap

Ukraine and Russia said today that they had returned around 100 soldiers each in the latest prisoner exchange between the two warring countries.

Kyiv and Moscow have periodically carried out prisoner swaps since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago.

“We are returning 100 of our people,” the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.

“They are military people, sailors, border guards, national guardsmen.”

Yermak said the exchange included troops who held out in Mariupol — the devastated port city captured by Russia last spring — and that some were “seriously injured.”

He called the exchange “difficult” and thanked officials for “doing what may often seem impossible.”