Women Hug in Chernihiv After Ukrainian Prisoner Swap
Ukraine has welcomed home six more prisoners of war who were in Russian captivity, the head of the presidency’s office said on Thursday, September 29.
Video posted to Andriy Yermak’s Telegram channel on Thursday shows women hugging at a sign near the Ukraine-Belarus border.
Yermak said four marines and two civilians were returned home after a prisoner swap with Russia.
“Our people are home. It is always a great joy when we manage to bring them back,” he wrote in an English-language post on Twitter.
The marines, identified as officers Oleksiy Bulakhov and Mykola Kostenko, and soldiers Lyudmila Gerasimenko and Ivan Zemlyanoy, were captured from Mariupol, he said.
Both civilians, Viktoriya Andrusha and Yana Maiboroda, were captured by Russian soldiers, according to Yermak. He said Andrusha was kidnapped from her home on March 27 in retaliation for sending information on Russian equipment to the Ukrainian armed forces, while Maiboroda was taken for having photos of Russian equipment in Chernobyl on her phone.
Yermak said 235 people were brought back to Ukraine in September. Credit: Andriy Yermak via Storyful
