Russia and Ukraine swapped 190 prisoners of war on October 18 under an agreement completed with the help of the United Arab Emirates.
The U.A.E. mediated the exchange, the country’s state news agency said, in a report that referred to a total of 190 soldiers.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram that the 95 returning Russian servicemen were undergoing medical checks in Belarus.
There was no immediate word of the exchange from Ukrainian authorities.
Russia and Ukraine earlier on October 18 exchanged the bodies of fallen servicemen. Russian State Duma Deputy Shamsail Saraliev, who is the legislative body’s representative of the parliamentary coordination group on military operations, said the exchange involved the bodies of 501 servicemen returned to Ukraine and 89 to Russia.
The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported that the bodies of soldiers killed in battles near Avdiyivka, Maryinka, Bakhmut, and Zaporizhzhya as well as one body from a morgue in Russia have been returned to their homeland.
The bodies will be taken to Ukrainian morgues for identification, after which they will be handed over to relatives for burial.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not yet commented on the exchange of bodies, which the two sides have regularly done since 2022. The International Committee of the Red Cross acts as an intermediary in the exchanges.
