Dozens of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war have returned home after a prisoner exchange, officials from both sides said Saturday.
Ukraine’s top presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said in a Telegram post that 116 Ukrainians were freed.
He said the freed prisoners of war include troops who held out in Mariupol during the months-long siege of Moscow that reduced the southern port city to ruins, as well as guerrillas from the Kherson region and snipers captured during fierce ongoing battles for the city. Eastern Bakhmut.
Meanwhile, Russian defense officials announced that 63 Russian soldiers had returned from Ukraine following the exchange, including some “special category” prisoners whose release was secured after mediation by the United Arab Emirates.
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Ukrainian soldiers in a trench can be seen studying an RPG rocket in a frontline position in the Donetsk region on January 23, 2023.
(ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
A statement issued on Saturday by the Russian Defense Ministry did not provide details about these “special category” captives.
At least three civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the past 24 hours as Russian forces attacked nine regions in the south, north and east of the country, according to reports from regional governors on Ukrainian television on Saturday morning.
Two people were killed and 14 others injured in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine by Russian shelling and missile attacks, local governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a Telegram update on Saturday morning.
The death toll included one man who was killed and seven others who were injured on Friday after Russian missiles slammed into Toretsk, a city in the Donetsk region. Kyrylenko said that 34 houses, two kindergartens, an outpatient clinic, a library, a cultural center and other buildings were damaged in the strike.
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Ukrainian flags are planted on soldiers’ graves at a Kharkiv cemetery on January 24, 2023 in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
(Spencer Platt/fake images)
Seven teenagers received shrapnel wounds after an anti-personnel mine exploded in the northeastern city of Izium on Friday night, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. He said they were all hospitalized but their lives were not in danger.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian regional officials reported that Russia overnight shelled border settlements in the northern Sumy region, as well as the town of Marhanets, neighboring the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Kyiv has long accused Moscow of using the plant, which Russian forces seized early in the war, as a base to launch attacks on Ukrainian-controlled territory across the Dnieper river.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odessa and surrounding areas were left in the dark after a large-scale grid failure, the country’s grid operator reported.
Ukrenergo said in a Telegram update that the failure involved equipment “repeatedly repaired” after Russia’s savage attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, and that residents should prepare for prolonged blackouts.
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People walk through the streets of Odessa, Ukraine, on February 1, 2023.
(Jose Colon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, the scale of the accident is quite significant, and this time, the power supply restrictions will be longer. It is not yet possible to determine a specific time when (power) will be fully restored,” the company said.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the Ministry of Energy would send “all the powerful generators it has in stock” to Odessa “within 24 hours” and that both the Ukrainian Energy Minister and the head of Ukrenergo were on their way to Odessa to supervise repair work. .
