This is the biggest exchange since the beginning of the war. Ukraine announced on Wednesday the exchange with Russia of 215 military personnel, including defense chiefs from the Azovstal steelworks in the city of Mariupol.
Russia, for its part, has recovered 55 prisoners, including ex-MP Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, accused of high treason in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address.
As part of this “long-prepared operation”, five military commanders, “superheroes”, including heads of defense of Azovstal, were transferred to Turkey, underlined the Ukrainian president. Negotiations on their exchange were “the longest, the most difficult”, he added.
These people will remain in Turkey “in absolute safety and in comfortable conditions” until “the end of the war” but will be able to meet their families there, under the terms of an agreement with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to the leader of the Ukrainian state.
A total of 188 “heroes of Azovstal and Mariupol”, including 108 soldiers from the Azov regiment, were exchanged. “We will do everything to save all those who are in Russian captivity”, further promised Volodymyr Zelensky, according to which among the prisoners exchanged there are pregnant women.