The Ukrainian president announced on Friday the release by Moscow of ten civilians, who had been taken prisoner in Crimea and Belarus.
Such a return of captured civilians is very rare since the beginning of the conflict.
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More than two years of war in Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Friday the release and return to Ukraine of ten civilians, including two priests and a local official, who had been taken prisoner in Crimea and Belarus. Russia and Ukraine, at war for more than two years, regularly exchange captured soldiers but the return of civilians is much rarer.
“We managed to bring back ten more of our fellow citizens from Russian captivity”he wrote on social media, adding that they had been “released and have now returned to Ukraine”. The agreement, which Moscow has not yet reported, was produced with the support of the Vatican, according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
FIVE DEAD
A Ukrainian drone attack left five dead, including two children, in a house in a Russian village on the border between the two countries, the governor of the Russian region of Kursk announced on Saturday.
“Five people were killed (…) including two children. Two other family members are in serious condition,” the governor, Alexei Smirnov, said on Telegram.
AND DIRECTLY
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The released detainees had been captured in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, in occupied southern Ukraine or, for five of them, in Belarus, a faithful ally of Russia. Among them is Nariman Djelal, a vice-president of the Medjlis, the Assembly of Crimean Tatars, arrested in 2021. The Tatars are a historic Muslim community on this peninsula. Two Catholic priests, Bogdan Geleta and Ivan Levytsky, are also on the list, according to the Ukrainian president. Two other released civilians were captured “in 2017-2018”, according to him.
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Volodymyr Zelensky said nothing about the terms of the agreement, and did not reveal whether Ukraine had, in exchange, released Russian prisoners. In terms of the release of civilians, precedents have been rare between the two countries since February 2022 and the start of the Russian invasion.
