(24 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Undisclosed location, Ukraine – 24 May 2025
1. Newly returned Ukrainian prisoners of war walking by, being handed envelopes
2. Various of returned POWs walking by
3. Maryna Bondarenko asking returned POWs for information about her husband Viktor, UPSOUND (Ukrainian)
Bondarenko: “Can I leave my phone number? I have this, call me back, please."
Man: "He’s definitely alive, yes."
4. Bondarenko crying and hugging woman, UPSOUND (Ukrainian) man speaking to Bondarenko behind camera: "Look, you can contact the ‘Mothers Shield’ to reach him and contact him. He sends you his video, you send him yours. It’s no problem at all. I think you will contact him within a week.”
5. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Maryna Bondarenko, wife of missing Ukrainian serviceman:
“It was very difficult for me. It was difficult for his father. Last time he (Viktor) saw his youngest child was when he was nine months old. I constantly showed the child pictures of his dad. He saw his dad only in the photos. And he kept saying ‘Dad, Dad, Dad’. And today was a very great day for me, a big day. We really hope for his return, that they will bring him back as soon as possible. I will go to every exchange. I will always wait to meet him. My bunny.”
6. Bondarenko speaking to returned POW, UPSOUND (Ukrainian) "No, I didn’t see this one. This one is definitely there. He’s fine, he’s alive and well."
7. Various of returned POWs boarding bus
8. Returned POWs speaking to woman, smoking
STORYLINE:
Hundreds more Ukrainian prisoners of war were returned home on Saturday on the second day of a major exchange with Russia.
Each side released 307 serviceman, a day after the first 390 were freed by both countries, according to statements from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Russian Defense Ministry.
Maryna Bondarenko’s husband Viktor, who has been missing since March 2022, wasn’t among the returnees.
But one of the released prisoners was able to tell Bondarenko her partner was alive and may still get to see his children again.
"Today was a very great day for me, a big day. We really hope for his return, that they will bring him back as soon as possible," she said.
But for those returning to Ukraine and not being reunited with their loved ones it was bittersweet, some only able to take solace in providing information to members of the waiting crowd.
The prisoner swap on Saturday was the second phase of a complicated deal involving the exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side.
However, the exchange — the latest of dozens of swaps since the war began and the biggest involving Ukrainian civilians so far — did not herald a halt in the fighting.
A large-scale Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv left at least 15 people injured.
Battles also continued 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
Production by Yehor Konovalov
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