Ukraine holds prisoner exchange with Russia. Journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko return

Ukraine exchanged prisoners with Russia on August 24. Civilians and military personnel returned home.

This was reported by President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Among the released soldiers are representatives of almost all formations of the Defense Forces: airborne assault, air, naval, as well as soldiers of the Territorial Defense Forces, the National Guard, and the State Border Service.

All of the released defenders are privates and sergeants. Almost all of them spent more than 3 years in captivity.

The servicemen who returned today defended the city of Mariupol, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Sumy directions, and guarded the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Also among the returnees are those who were captured in temporarily occupied territories, in Crimea.

The Coordination Headquarters does not specify exactly how many people were returned from captivity, but writes that eight of them are civilians. Russian media reported on the exchange in the format of "146 for 146".

In particular, two Ukrainian journalists returned: Dmytro Khylyuk, who worked for UNIAN, and Mark Kaliush, a journalist from Melitopol. They were illegally detained by the occupiers in 2022 and 2023.

Among the released civilians is also a medic Serhii Kovalev from the “Hospitallers” battalion, who saved the lives of defenders and civilians during the siege of the “Azovstal” plant. Former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko, who did not cooperate with the occupiers, is also returning home.

As Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets writes, the youngest discharged soldier is 26 years old, the oldest is 62 years old.

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