Photo: Dmytro Lubinets / Facebook
Head of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Directorate Kyrylo Budanov said that the next stage of a prisoner exchange could take place as early as the end of next week.
He stated that during the previous exchange, the Russian side did not manage to fully complete the necessary preparatory procedures, which affected the scale of the process. Budanov noted that Ukraine could not delay the return of its citizens, so part of the exchange was carried out without waiting for full readiness from the other side. As a result, at least 182 Ukrainians were brought home.
Budanov emphasized that the delays were mainly of a bureaucratic nature and not linked to political decisions. He expressed hope that the next phase of the exchange would take place by the end of next week, provided that all technical details are agreed upon.
Earlier, Andrii Yusov from Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence reported that Ukraine had planned to repatriate a larger number of prisoners in the previous exchange, but the Russian side reportedly refused to approve the expanded list.
During the latest exchange, 175 Ukrainian service members and seven civilians were returned. Those released included members of the National Guard, the State Border Guard Service, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine who had been deployed across multiple front sectors, including Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Kyiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as defenders of Mariupol and the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
