Ukraine has brought home 270 people in a prisoner exchange with Russia, including military personnel and nine civilians, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday, Oct. 23.
Most of those released had been held in Russian captivity since 2022, and five were previously believed to have died in the July 2022 Russian attack on the Olenivka prison.
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“270 of our people are home. A very important result,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
Those released include members of Ukraine’s National Guard, including fighters from the Azov unit, as well as border guards, Territorial Defense members, and personnel from the Navy, Ground Forces, Air Assault Forces, and State Special Transport Service.
According to Zelensky, most of those returning are soldiers who defended the besieged southern port city of Mariupol. Others served in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, and Chernihiv sectors.
Many of the released Ukrainians had been illegally convicted in Russia, Zelensky said.
Among those returning are five people who had previously been believed to have died during Russia’s July 2022 attack on the Olenivka prison, where Ukrainian prisoners of war were held.
According to open-source data, more than 53 Ukrainian defenders were killed and over 130 wounded in the mass killing of Ukrainian prisoners of war at Penal Colony No. 120 in Russian-occupied Olenivka (Donetsk region) on the night of July 29, 2022. Most of the victims were members of the Azov Regiment who had defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.
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The package will also fund locomotives and energy equipment, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“We remember every single person and continue the search for everyone,” Zelensky wrote, thanking those involved in securing the exchanges.
He also thanked Ukrainian troops on the front lines for capturing Russian personnel, which he said helps Ukraine bring its own people home through prisoner exchanges.
150 Russian soldiers traced by families through Ukrainian project
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian state project I Want to Find (Khochu Nayti), which provides information about Russian military personnel captured, missing, or killed in Ukraine, reported on Telegram that 270 Russian soldiers had returned to Russia in the exchange.
More than half of those released – 150 people, or 56% – had been located by their relatives through the project. It helped their families confirm their captivity, enabling them to secure official prisoner-of-war status for the soldiers in Russia.
According to the project, 40% of those exchanged had spent less than a year in captivity, while another 43% had been held for one to two years. Only 17% had been in captivity for more than two years.
“For comparison: in the August exchange, more than half of the military personnel whom Russia brought back from captivity had spent less than a year there,” the report stated.
Half of those returned were between 35 and 44 years old, while young men aged 19 to 24 accounted for the next-largest group, at 21%. The exchange also included 11 prisoners of war aged over 55.
Ahead of the elections, Russian authorities announced they were prepared to include residents of the Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions who had been recruited into the Russian Armed Forces on prisoner-exchange lists. Before that announcement, Russia had refused for years to facilitate the return of these prisoners of war.
“As soon as the elections were over, officials predictably tried to ‘forget’ their promises. However, the prisoners of war themselves and their families continued to push for them to be honored,” the project said.
POWs from the so-called “LDNR” (Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics) recorded video appeals and repeatedly asked Russia to include them in exchange lists during interviews.
Many had been in captivity since the beginning of the full-scale war. During that time, they had witnessed numerous exchanges in which Moscow brought home service members who had spent only a few months in captivity, the project noted.
Following public pressure, Russian authorities included dozens of Russian Armed Forces personnel from the so-called “LDNR” in Friday’s exchange. Among them were Dmitry Ryabtsev and Sergey Kharitonov, who had been held in captivity for more than four years.
First major POW exchange in two months
The most recent known return took place on Aug. 24, when Ukraine brought home 10 servicemen via Belarus as a special stage of an exchange previously agreed between the two sides. All 10 had fought in the Donetsk sector and had been listed as missing – two since 2024 and eight since 2025.
Earlier, on Aug. 19, Ukraine and Russia exchanged 103 prisoners each. Those released to Ukraine included members of the Armed Forces, Border Guard Service, and National Guard who had fought in Mariupol and other sectors.
In April, Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, announced preparations for another exchange shortly after Ukraine brought home 182 people in its 72nd prisoner swap.
The group included 175 military personnel and seven civilians, many of whom had been held in captivity since 2022. Among them were defenders of Mariupol and the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
At the time, Budanov said a larger group could not be returned immediately because of what he described as bureaucratic delays on the Russian side.