"As a result of the negotiation process, 95 Russian servicemen were returned from territory controlled by the Kyiv regime," the Russian defence ministry said.
"In return, 95 Ukrainian army prisoners of war were handed over," it said.
Kyiv has not confirmed the exchange but the human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
centre Zmina said a prominent Ukrainian rights activist, Maksym Butkevych, was freed in the swap, citing his father.
Butkevych, co-founder of the independent Hromadske radio station and also a Ukraine serviceman, was serving a 13-year sentence on charges of wounding two civilians while firing an anti-tank grenade launcher in the eastern city of Severodonetsk.
He joined the Ukrainian army in March 2022, was detained in June and convicted of war crimes by a court in Lugansk in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine in March 2023.
Despite ongoing hostilities, Russia and Ukraine have swapped hundreds of prisoners since the launch of Moscow's offensive in 2022, often in deals brokered by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...or
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
.
The last reported swap was in September, when 206 POWs were exchanged, in a deal also mediated by the UAE.
Earlier Friday, Kyiv said it had received the bodies of 501 soldiers killed fighting Russian forces, mainly in eastern Ukraine, as a result of repatriation measures.
Russian politician Shamsail Saraliyev told the RBK media outlet that Russia received 89 bodies of its soldiers in return.