Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian authorities said that 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months. Russia's Defense Ministry said that 248 Russian servicemen have been freed under the deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates, reports the AP. There was no immediate acknowledgment from the UAE, which has maintained close business ties to Moscow throughout Russia's war on Ukraine.
Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said it was the 49th prisoner exchange during the war. Some of the Ukrainians had been held since 2022. Among them were some of those who fought in milestone battles for Ukraine's Snake Island and the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Russian officials offered no other details of the exchange.
Also Wednesday, Russia said it shot down 12 missiles fired at one of its southern regions bordering Ukraine, as Kyiv's forces seek to embarrass the Kremlin and puncture President Vladimir Putin's argument that life is going on as normal despite the 22-month war. The situation in the border city of Belgorod, which came under two rounds of shelling on Wednesday morning, "remains tense," said regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov, writing on Telegram. "Air defense systems worked," he said. The Russian side of the frontier has come under increasingly frequent attack in recent days. Throughout the war, border villages have sporadically been targeted by Ukrainian artillery fire, rockets, mortar shells, and drones launched from thick forests where they are hard to detect.
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Lately, as Russia fired missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities, Kyiv's troops have aimed at Belgorod's regional capital, the biggest Russian city near the border. It can be reached by relatively simple and movable weapons such as multiple rocket launchers. Hitting Belgorod and disrupting city life is a dramatic way for Ukraine to show it can strike back against Russia, whose military outnumbers and outguns Kyiv's forces. The tactic appeared to be having some success, with signs the attacks are unsettling the public, political leaders, and military observers. Answering a question from a soldier who asked him about civilian casualties in Belgorod, Putin said: "I also feel a simmering anger." (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)
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