Ukraine and Russia announced they had completed a new prisoner exchange as part of an agreement reached on June 2 in Istanbul, more than three years after the war began.
The number of exchanged soldiers was not announced, as in previous exchanges.
"Our people are returning home after being captured by the Russians," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram, posting photos of men with scars on their faces and shaved heads, most of them wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said the soldiers were seriously ill or wounded, and most were captured in 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed the exchange, publishing photos of smiling Russian soldiers wrapped in their country's flags.
"In accordance with the Russian-Ukrainian agreement reached on June 2 in Istanbul, a group of Russian soldiers has returned from the territory controlled by the Kiev regime," the Russian military said in a statement.
For more than three years, Ukraine has been facing a Russian invasion that has resulted in at least tens of thousands of deaths on both sides, both civilians and military personnel.
The authorities of both countries have not released an official tally of soldiers wounded or killed at the front.
During the talks in Istanbul, Kiev and Moscow agreed to release all their young or wounded prisoners of war and to return the remains of fallen fighters, which is the only tangible result of these negotiations.
Kiev has received more than 6.000 bodies, presumed to be Ukrainians, at various stages.
Moscow, for its part, claims to have received 78 bodies from Kiev.
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