Kiev, June 29, (dpa/GNA) – Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has welcomed the return of Ukrainian prisoners from Russia, including Nariman Dzhelyal, a leader of the Crimean Tatars.
“Ten civilians, plus 90 soldiers were released this week,” Zelensky said in a video message. This brought to 3,310, prisoners released to Ukraine from Russian prisons, he said.
“We have to find all our people and return them to Ukraine, every one of them in prison or deported, adults and children, soldiers and civilians,” he said.
Dzhelyal was among the 10 civilians returned on Friday. Zelensky held brief talks with the Tatar leader on Saturday. They last met in 2021.
Shortly after that meeting and before the Russian invasion of February 2022, Dzhelyal was arrested in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. He was subsequently sentenced to 17 years in prison after being found guilty of blowing a gas pipeline.
Among those released were two priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
No information has been released on whether Russian prisoners were released by the Ukrainians in return.
The last prisoner exchange between Kiev and Moscow a few days ago, included a metropolitan of the pro-Russian Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who received a decoration from Patriarch Kirill on his arrival in Moscow.
GNA