Ukrainian intelligence spokesman outlines key gain of POW exchange with Russia
Ukraine is negotiating the next stages of a large-scale prisoner exchange with Russia under challenging conditions. Despite Russian pressure, the second stage, carried out on 10 June, saw the return of the first severely wounded and seriously ill prisoners. Many of them were not shown in a previously posted video, as they were immediately taken by ambulance to medical facilities.
Source: Major Andrii Yusov, Deputy Head of Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War and spokesman for Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU), on a national joint 24/7 newscast; a video by the Coordination Centre; a video by the Security Service of Ukraine
Quote from Yusov: "Today, among other things, we managed to bring back officers. This is an important separate achievement, a separate component. The conditions were very difficult. You can see the condition of our prisoners in the footage. However, many of them are not visible in the footage, as they were immediately taken away by ambulance. They cannot move on their own. Some diagnoses are listed, but these are people with amputations, loss of vision, hepatitis, tuberculosis and many other complications from Russian captivity. And all these people need immediate help, which will be provided. And work is already underway to continue the next stages of this complex exchange, this complex special operation."
Details: When asked whether the current stage of the exchange was difficult, the DIU spokesperson said that no swap has been easy.
Ukraine is negotiating with Russia under difficult circumstances, as the latter frequently disregards international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, and even exploits them for its own benefit, the officer stressed.
Quote from Yusov: "Today, the talks continued in a way that truly hit a nerve, under extremely difficult conditions. And all these days, they were accompanied by an active enemy information attack, a disinformation campaign and an attempt to put pressure on the relatives of captured defenders.
We are not commenting on the numbers now and this is very important. I would like to emphasise that until this exchange is completed, it is an important position not to comment on specific figures. I would like to appeal to everyone and experts, especially anonymous channels and sources: if you are acting in the interests of Ukraine and care about the interests of our defenders, do not disseminate unverified data, do not comment on the numbers until all stages are completed. This directly affects the process."
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