Ukraine is ready for a prisoner exchange on the "all for all" principle - Zelenskyy
Kyiv • UNN
Ukraine is ready for a prisoner exchange with Russia under the "all for all" formula. President Zelenskyy stressed that Russia must release Ukrainians who have been held since 2014 and 2022.
Ukraine is ready for a prisoner exchange with Russia on the principle of "all for all". This was stated by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the "Support Ukraine" summit, reports the correspondent of UNN.
The end of the war should begin with steps that restore trust in the situation itself, because there is no trust in Russia, and there needs to be a situation in which they talk about the end of the war, a real situation. And now such a step can be the release of prisoners, thousands of people who are being held in Russia, and some of them not only from 2022, but even earlier - from 2014. Russia must release Ukrainians. Ukraine is ready for an "all for all" exchange, and this is a fair option
Supplement
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets reported that there is currently a preliminary agreement that exchanges in 2025 should become systematic, with priority given to the return of the seriously ill and seriously wounded first.
As reported by the Ombudsman, according to data as of February 18, 2025, 4,131 Ukrainians have been returned from enemy captivity. According to calculations, Ukraine and Russia have already conducted 61 prisoner exchanges since the beginning of the full-scale war.
According to Lubinets' data as of the end of December 2024, more than 16,000 civilian citizens of Ukraine are in Russian captivity, of whom only 168 have been released.
According to estimates by the Media Initiative for Human Rights, as of May 2024, more than ten thousand Ukrainian servicemen were in captivity in Russia.