Our readers' questions about the war, answered

Editor's note: We asked the patrons of the Kyiv Independent to share the questions they have about the war. Here's what they asked and how we answered. Join our community of patrons to ask a question in the next round. 

Question: Do we hear about all of the POW exchanges that take place in the news? If not, how often do they actually happen? Who negotiates them in each case (as much as anyone can know)?

Answer: Since September, when 215 Ukrainian prisoners of war were freed as part of a major prisoner swap that included Ukraine sending pro-Kremlin politician Viktor Medvedchuk to Moscow, the two countries held regular exchanges.

Ukraine retrieved nearly 1,600 prisoners of war in 2022, according to the Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories.

At least 3,392 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians remained in Russian captivity as of Jan. 3, according to Alyona Verbytska, the President's Commissioner for Protecting Defenders Rights.

These were the numbers that Russia has officially confirmed, she said.

In 2023, a number of prisoner exchanges were already conducted,

In the most recent prisoner exchange on March 7, Ukraine returned 130 soldiers, among them four women, from Russian captivity.

All of them are public, yet the exact process of how they are conducted varies depending on the situation. Usually, they are conducted on the Ukrainian-Russian border and involve multiple rounds of negotiations under the president's office lead. – Oleksiy Sorokin, senior editor