Ukraine says it has begun talks with Russia to exchange prisoners captured by Kyiv as it continues its operation in the Kursk region.
According to the Financial Times, the talks came after more than a week of fierce fighting in the western Russian region and “the largest enemy capture at one time.”
Ukrainian Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets told local media on August 14 that his Russian counterpart had contacted him to start discussing the exchange of prisoners of war.
Ukraine’s military intelligence, which is negotiating the prisoner of war deal, confirmed to the media that it is working on the exchange.
Kyiv does not disclose the exact number of Russian prisoners captured by its forces during the Kursk operation, but government officials and soldiers on the border told the FT that the number was in the “hundreds, – the newspaper noted.
The exchange negotiations took place 10 days after Ukraine launched the Kursk operation.
According to the newspaper, the capture of Russian prisoners is likely to strengthen Kyiv’s calls for the return of thousands of its soldiers and civilians captured during the two and a half years of Russia’s full-scale invasion and occupation of large areas of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Among them are many young conscripts who were captured by Ukrainian forces at this early stage of Kyiv’s stealthy invasion – the first such operation on Russian soil since World War II, – the Financial Times added.
In addition, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not yet disclosed the objectives of the operation, but he has repeatedly praised his soldiers for capturing Russian prisoners on the battlefield and “replenishing” what he called an “exchange fund” for prisoner exchange.
Earlier, Russian officials said that Moscow might stop the prisoner exchange. But Lubinets said that his conversation with his Russian counterpart, Tatyana Moskalkova, gave him hope that the warring sides would soon be able to move forward with the exchange.
We have priority categories that we are ready to exchange. First of all, these are the seriously wounded. Secondly, Ukrainian women, and thirdly, all those who remained in captivity, – he said.
Lubinets also noted that he had informed the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross that “the rights of Russian prisoners of war are protected and at any time Ukraine is ready to continue the exchange process on the basis of the Geneva Convention”.
Also, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Dmytro Lubinets said on Wednesday that the Ukrainian authorities would try to establish army offices in Kursk to provide humanitarian aid to Russian residents.
