The coordination centre for prisoners of war in Ukraine announced the release from the Russian captivity of 12 residents and defenders of the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions. It is reported that 5 defenders of Ukraine have a complex state of health. Some Ukrainian soldiers have sergeant ranks, and other defenders who returned from captivity are soldiers. They were captured in villages near Bakhmut (Donetsk region) and Kreminna, Chervonopopivka (Luhansk region).
In addition to the fighters, 2 civilians were released from captivity. The Russian Federation captured them almost at the beginning of the war and held them as hostages. One person was stolen by the occupiers from the village of Liptsi in the Kharkiv region, the second prisoner lived in now destroyed Mariupol.
It is noteworthy that Russia has been violating all the rules of combat since the first days of the war. This time the Kremlin did not follow the accepted international rules either.
"Ukraine voluntarily and unconditionally returned to Russia all (5) seriously wounded prisoners who were transportable. This is following international humanitarian law. On the other hand, the aggressor state had decided to release only 5 seriously wounded Ukrainians, not all of them, as required by the international conventions signed by the Russian Federation. This eloquently demonstrates the unwillingness of the enemy to respect the Geneva Conventions, the unjustifiable brutality against the critically wounded, and the blatant lack of interest in further exchanges for particularly vulnerable categories of prisoners and civilian hostages," reported the Ukrainian coordination centre.
