The Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had exchanged Ukrainian prisoners of war on Tuesday 205 prisoners for the same number of Russian prisoners of war, at the forefront of a three-day ceasefire unilaterally decreed by Vladimir Putin.
“On May 6, 205 Russian soldiers were dismissed from the territory controlled by the kyiv regime and 205 prisoners of war from the Ukrainian armed forces were presented in exchange,” the Russian ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine, a neighboring country against which Moscow launched a large -scale offensive just over three years ago, did not comment on the Russian announcement immediately.
This exchange of prisoners comes three days from celebrations of the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and the day before a ceasefire unilaterally decreed by the Russian president in this conflict which made tens of thousands of dead and wounded on both sides.
This truce was described as “attempted manipulation” by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to an AFP count, this is the fifth exchange of prisoners of war since the beginning of the year.
The question of prisoners of war is the subject of difficult negotiations and constitutes one of the few areas on which kyiv and Moscow manage to get along.
