Almost 50 POW swaps completed since full-scale invasion - defense intel

The Russian military leadership is making no effort to free its own prisoners of war from Ukrainian captivity, despite claiming otherwise, while Ukraine continues negotiations to ensure that its captured soldiers are exchanged.

That’s according to Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, who spoke on the air of the national telethon, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

According to Yusov, since the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has been making every effort to bring its defenders home.

"More than 2,500 Ukrainians were returned from Russian captivity within almost 50 exchanges, and work to this end continues," he emphasized.

Instead, the Russian military leadership is making no effort to return its POWs, Yusov said.

"We state the fact that, despite recent public statements made by (Russian defense minister Sergei – ed.) Shoigu and other officials of the aggressor state that it is important for them to return POWs, they are not making any real efforts to do so. Nevertheless, the negotiations did not stop all this time, and they continue, so we count on results, preparing for this in accordance with international legislation and actively replenishing the exchange fund," Yusov emphasized.

The spokesman stopped short of providing exact data on the number of Ukrainian POWs held by Russia, only emphasizing that the authorities continue their work on updating the relevant registers.

"Independently of public information, the register of the National Information Bureau is in place, where data are collected on prisoners of war – our servicemen and servicewomen – and on civilian prisoners who are in the hands of the Russians," Yusov said.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the speaker of the "I Want to Live" project, Vitaly Matvienko, said more than 250 Russian servicemen took the opportunity to save their lives and refused to fight against Ukraine.