"Why aren't they being exchanged?": Russian prisoners of war appealed to Putin on his direct line
Kyiv • UNN
Russian prisoners of war in Ukraine recorded a video message to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, asking why they are not being exchanged. Among them are seriously wounded and those who were captured for the second time, despite the Istanbul agreements.
Servicemen of the armed forces of the Russian occupation army, who are in Ukraine as prisoners of war, recorded a video message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who on December 19 will hold his annual "direct line" where he will answer questions that "concern" Russian society. The video was published by the public movement "Our Way Out", UNN reports.
Details
In the address, the prisoners of war ask the head of the terrorist state why they are not being exchanged. Among the prisoners who appear in the video are seriously wounded, sick, Muslims, Akhmatovites, as well as a soldier who was captured for the second time.
At the moment, I am in a prisoner of war camp. There are thousands of people like us here. There are also wounded here, and there are also those under 25 years old, although on June 2, 2025, the Istanbul agreements were reached, according to which there was an agreement to exchange "all for all" in these two categories. Not everyone was exchanged!
"Everyone is waiting for Putin to exchange us. There is no patience," adds prisoner of war Mansur Elmurzaev.
The leader of the "Our Way Out" movement, Iryna Krynina, expressed hope that Ukraine and Russia would conclude a peace agreement, the first point of which would be the exchange of prisoners of war in an "all for all" format.
Reference
The public movement "Our Way Out" was founded by Russian women in Ukraine at the end of December 2023. The organization helps families of Russians who disappeared in the war in Ukraine in their search for relatives, and also facilitates the registration of the status of "prisoner of war" in Russia, which makes it possible to be included in the exchange lists.
In January 2024, a memorandum of cooperation was signed in Ukraine between the "Our Way Out" movement and the Ukrainian project "I Want to Find". The interaction between the organizations contributes to accelerating the processes of prisoner exchange: after receiving the status of "prisoner of war" in Russia, the prisoner is included in the exchange lists, as a result of which Ukraine returns its defender.
For its activities, the "Our Way Out" movement in Russia was assigned the status of "foreign agent".