Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the third stage of the prisoner exchange will take place in the format of “1,000 for 1,000.”
“Tomorrow marks the third stage. We need to free a thousand of our people within the next few days, but the ultimate goal is to secure the release of every single person currently held in Russia. This is a shared responsibility for our diplomats and for the entire nation,” he said during his evening video address on Saturday. “It’s not an easy task, but it must be done,” he added.
The president expressed his gratitude to everyone around the world who is helping Ukraine. “It is truly important for us that our partners, every leader, and every country support us in this difficult effort. We are not stopping for even a single day,” he emphasized.
According to Zelensky, another 307 Ukrainian soldiers returned on Saturday. In total, 697 Ukrainians have come home over the past two days of the exchange. “Most of them are from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also from the National Guard and the State Border Guard Service. Among these individuals, 273 were captured in the Donetsk region, many as far back as 2022. Others come from the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Luhansk regions,” Zelensky said.