103 Ukrainian POWs returned from Russian captivity, including 23 Azov fighters

President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that 103 Ukrainian POWs were returned from Russian captivity on Sept. 14.

"Our people are home," he said in a post on social media.

In a separate post, the Azov Angels charity fund said 23 of those released were Azov fighters, returning "after more than two years of captivity."

Azov fighters became a symbol of Ukraine's resistance through their tenacious defense of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in the first three months of the all-out war.

Russian forces eventually occupied Mariupol in May 2022, capturing the remaining defenders.

Zelensky said the released POWs consisted of 82 privates and sergeants, and 21 officers, adding they were "defenders of Kyiv and Donetsk oblasts, Mariupol and Azovstal, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv oblasts. Warriors of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard of Ukraine, border guards, and police officers."

"The vast majority of those released are people who had been held (in captivity) since the first days of the war,” said Ukraine's Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets in a statement.

Lubinets stressed that people who returned need serious rehabilitation, as their health has deteriorated severely during captivity.

Previously, the United Nations commission published several reports describing the torture of Ukrainian POWs as “widespread and systematic,” and the conditions of their detention as "shocking." Some Ukrainian POWs died in captivity from causes such as "blunt force trauma".

This is the 57th prisoner exchange since the outbreak of the full-scale war, and the second exchange carried out in the last two days.

Earlier on Sept. 13, 49 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were released from Russian captivity. They included personnel of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the National Police, and border guards.

A total of 3,672 Ukrainians have been brought back from Russian captivity.

Kyiv aims to conduct an all-for-all prisoner exchange, which was one of the subjects at Ukraine's peace summit in Switzerland in mid-June.

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The Kyiv IndependentKate Tsurkan