Yermak: 45 Azovstal defenders return home from Russian captivity.
President Volodymyr Zelensky's Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak reported[1] on May 6 that 45 Ukrainian prisoners of war had returned home from Russian captivity as part of a prisoner exchange. Yermak said all of the POWs, including 10 officers, had defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol in Donetsk Oblast when it was besieged by Russian troops in 2022. One of the returned POWs had spent 2.5 years in Russian captivity before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
When swapped, he returned to Ukraine, defended the Azovstal plant and was captured again. Among the released Ukrainians are 42 men and three women, Yermak said. On April 16, Ukraine also returned [2]home another 130 POWs.
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