Ukraine Returns Another 116 Service Members from Russian Captivity (Video)

Today, 4 February, 116 people, including Mariupol defenders, Kherson partisans, snipers from Bakhmut direction, returned home after another prisoner swap.

Head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak said that Ukraine released 87 members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, eight members of the Territorial Defence Forces, seven members of the National Guard, six National Police officers, five border guards, two members of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and one representative of the State Emergency Service from Russian captivity.

According to Yermak, two officers and 114 privates and sergeants were released.

“In addition, we managed to return the bodies of fallen foreign volunteer fighters – Christopher Matthew Perry and Andrew Tobias Matthew Bagshaw – as well as the body of Yevhen Kulyk, a fallen Ukrainian volunteer soldier who had served in the French Foreign Legion and returned to defend Ukraine after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion,” Yermak noted.

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War clarified that 23 released defenders are injured or sick, some lost limbs from frostbite. The youngest of the freed soldiers recently turned 20 years old, the oldest is 62 years old.

The Ukrainian authorities underscore that the next exchanges are being prepared and all Ukrainians will definitely return home.

Bohdan Marusyak