Asking Allies To Urge Moscow For Prisoner Exchange, President Zelensky: We Don't Need Russian Troops, Only Ours

JAKARTA - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on his allies to pressure Moscow over a prisoner swap, saying he was ready to do it in no time.

"The exchange of people, this is a humanitarian issue today and a very political decision that depends on the support of many countries," Zelensky said in a video link to a Q&A with an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"It is important to suppress politically at any level, through strong business, through business closures, oil embargoes and through these threats, actively intensify the exchange of our people with Russian servicemen."

"We don't need Russian soldiers, we just need our soldiers. We are ready for an exchange, even tomorrow," Zelensky said.

President Zelensky further said that Ukraine had involved the United Nations, Switzerland, Israel and "many, many countries", but the process was very complicated.

Several thousand people were detained after Russia seized the port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine and as a result of fighting in the eastern Donbas region, he said.

Russia sent thousands of troops to Ukraine on February 24 in a special military operation, with claims to demilitarize and root out dangerous nationalists, a claim that Kyiv and Western countries reject as a false pretext for land grabs.

In recent weeks, Russian forces have attempted to encircle Ukrainian forces and completely seize the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the Donbas region, where Moscow supports separatist fighters.