Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the exchange on X, saying 185 Ukrainian defenders and one civilian had returned from Russian captivity. He said the freed servicemen included members of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, National Guard and State Border Guard Service, ranging from privates to officers. According to Zelenskyy, the returnees had fought in Mariupol and at the Azovstal steel plant, as well as on the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Kyiv and Kursk axes. “Among them are those returning after years in Russian captivity, where they had been held since 2022,” Zelenskyy said. The exchange marks a rare point of cooperation between Kyiv and Moscow amid the ongoing war, with prisoner swaps remaining one of the few areas in which the two sides continue to reach limited agreements.