Irina Vereshchuk reported how many Ukrainians managed to return from the captivity of the occupiers.
On Thursday, March 24, the first full-fledged exchange of prisoners took place between Ukraine and the aggressor country of the Russian Federation. This was announced by the Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Irina Vereshchuk.
“Today, by order of President Zelensky, the first full-fledged exchange of prisoners of war took place. In exchange for 10 captured occupiers, we pulled out 10 of our servicemen, “Vereshchuk wrote in the Telegram.
According to the Minister, today Ukraine also sent to the Russians 11 Russian civilian sailors rescued from a sunken ship near Odessa. As a result of this exchange, 19 Ukrainian civilian sailors are returning home from the rescue ship “Sapphire”, captured by the occupiers in an attempt to take our troops from the island of Snake.
“Under the terms of the exchange, the rescue ship itself will also be returned to Ukraine and sent to a port in Turkey,” Vereshchuk added.
Read also: Ukraine will not disseminate data on the number of prisoners – Denisov
It will be recalled that Russian warships seized the Sapphire ship bound for Snake Island with a humanitarian mission on February 26.
Later, the same group of ships seized two more Ukrainian civilian ships – the tanker “Athena” and the dry cargo ship “Princess Nicole” . The day before, the occupiers announced a “counter-terrorist operation” in the northwestern part of the Black Sea.
On March 9, it became known that the civilian rescue ship “Sapphire” captured by the Russian occupiers was being transported to the port of occupied Sevastopol .
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