JAKARTA - Moscow and Kyiv have carried out one of the largest prisoner swaps in the war so far, swapping a total of 218 prisoners, including 108 Ukrainian women, officials from both countries said.
Andriy Yermak, Ukraine's presidential chief of staff, said 12 civilians were among the women released on Monday.
"Another large-scale exchange of prisoners of war took place today," Yermak wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
"We released 108 women from captivity. It was the first exchange of women (Ukraine)," he continued.
He said 37 women had been arrested after Russian troops took control of the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol in May.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov in southeastern Ukraine, withstood weeks of Russian bombardment. Resistance was concentrated in the dense network of tunnels beneath the Azovstal steel mill.
"Ukraine has left no one behind," said Yermak. According to him, some of the people who were exchanged were mothers and daughters who had been juxtaposed.
Our people are returning home 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/RjCbUyXBfA
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) October 17, 2022
Images released by Yermak showed dozens of women, some wearing coats and military uniforms, getting off the white bus.
The oldest woman is 62 years old while the youngest is 21 years old, said the Headquarters for the Coordination of the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Ukraine's interior ministry said some of the released women had been jailed since 2019 after being detained by pro-Moscow authorities in the east.
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Separately, Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed the exchange, saying 110 Russians were released, including 72 sailors from a commercial vessel detained since February. It said all the returnees would be flown to Moscow and provided with medical and psychological assistance.
It is understood that the latest exchange came after a prisoner swap last week when the two sides twice exchanged dozens of troops.
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