(23 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Undisclosed location, Ukraine – 23 May 2025
1. Bus arriving
2. Women holding banner
3. Newly released Ukrainian POWs walking past wrapped in Ukrainian flags
4. Released POW hugging soldier
5. Released POW hugging woman
6. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Artur, released Ukrainian soldier:
"I told her (my girlfriend) that I love her very much and I can’t wait for her to arrive. We haven’t seen each other for three years, I miss her a lot and want to see her."
7. Various of people standing in front of registration point with photos of their missing relatives
8. Women hugging
9. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Dmytro, released Ukrainian solder:
"Difficult, it is very difficult. My condition is unstable. Сonfusion, I’m shaking. I have problems with speech and memory. I don’t know what to say. It’s hard, hard. Until the last minute, we did not know where we were going. To the exchange, to another prison, we didn’t know."
10. Released POWs entering building
11. Various of people waiting holding photos of their missing relatives
12. Crying woman being comforted
13. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov waking towards reporters
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Rustem Umerov, Ukrainian Defense Minister:
"First of all, at this exchange at the moment, there are prisoners of war and civilians. We are working with all categories, with all the components of the defense forces. So they are included and we are working to finalise the first stage. It’s 1,000 people."
15. Various of Umerov leaving
STORYLINE:
Russia and Ukraine began a major prisoner exchange Friday, swapping hundreds of soldiers and civilians in the first phase of an exchange that was a moment of cooperation in otherwise failed efforts to reach a ceasefire in the 3-year-old war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the first phase of the exchange brought home 390 Ukrainians, including soldiers and civilians, with further releases expected over the weekend that will make it the largest swap of the war.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had received the same number from Ukraine.
“It’s very important to bring everyone home,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, thanking all who worked to secure their return and pledging to continue diplomatic efforts to make more exchanges possible.
Dozens of relatives of prisoners cheered and chanted “Thank you!” as buses carrying the freed captives arrived at a medical facility in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region.
The men, some with expressionless faces and others unable to contain their emotions, got off the buses wrapped in Ukrainian flags for joyful reunions.
Kyiv and Moscow agreed in Istanbul last week to the exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side in their first direct peace talks since the early weeks of Russia’s 2022 invasion.
That meeting lasted only two hours and brought no breakthrough in U.S.-led efforts efforts to stop the fighting.
The swap took place at the border with Belarus in northern Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The exchange, which would be the latest of dozens of swaps since the war began and the biggest involving Ukrainian civilians at one time, didn’t herald any halt in fighting.
Battles continues along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed, and neither country has relented in its deep strikes.
AP video shot by Alex Babenko
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