From January to early August of this year, only 3 prisoner exchanges took place between Russia and Ukraine, but now this process has accelerated.
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As reported by NBN with reference to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the breakthrough of the Defense Forces into the Kursk region seems to have intensified Russian-Ukrainian prisoner exchanges.
On the night of October 19, Ukraine and the Russian Federation exchanged 95 prisoners of war, which became the fourth such procedure since the beginning of the operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region (began on August 6, 2024), and 58th in total: defenders of the Mariupol Azovstal returned home from Russian prisons, National Guardsmen, border guards and police officers.
ISW analysts point out that there has been a qualitative increase in the frequency of prisoner of war exchanges between Ukraine and Russia against the backdrop of the “Kursk breakthrough”: a total of 267 people have been exchanged three times.
At the same time, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War notes that the released defenders have a number of serious illnesses and injuries, and also show noticeable weight loss due to torture and exhaustion from malnutrition in Russian captivity.
Earlier, we wrote that The Coord Headquarters revealed the specifics of the 58th prisoner exchange with the Russian Federation.