More than 100 Ukrainian women were freed Monday in a prisoner of war swap with Russia, according to the New York Post.
Moscow released 108 Ukrainian women — in what Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak called the war’s “first all-female exchange” — in return for 110 Russians.
According to the Post, the vast majority of the women released are fighters in Ukraine’s armed forces, while 12 are civilians.
“Mothers and daughters were in captivity, and their relatives were waiting for them,” Yermak said on his Telegram channel.
Confirming the exchange, the Russian Ministry of Defense said two Ukrainian prisoners had “voluntarily refused to return to Ukraine,” choosing instead to stay in Russia.
Among the Russian citizens released were 72 Russian sailors from civilian vessels who had been captured by Ukraine at the beginning of the conflict, according to the defense ministry.
On the Ukrainian side, 37 women who had defended the Azovstal steelworks were among those freed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday.
The Soviet-era steelworks complex was the site of a last-ditch effort by Ukrainian forces to fend off advancing Russians in Mariupol this spring. Fighters took cover within the steelworks for weeks, withstanding relentless bombing while repelling Russian attempts to take the plant.
Some of the released Ukrainians had been taken prisoner by Russian forces before the Kremlin’s all-out invasion, Zelenskyy said, presumably during the clashes that broke out in the Donbass after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“Among those released today are those who were captured long before the full-scale war,” the Ukrainian president said. “We do not forget about any of our people – we have to return them all. And we will return them all.”
Zelenskyy also reminded Ukrainian fighters how to “replenish our exchange fund.”
“The more Russian prisoners we have, the sooner we will be able to free our heroes,” he said. “Every Ukrainian warrior, every frontline commander should remember this.”
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