Today, the third exchange of prisoners took place: 12 military and 14 civilians were released.

This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Irina Vereshchuk in her Telegram channel.

"By order of President Zelensky, the third exchange of prisoners took place today. 12 of our soldiers are returning home, of which one is a female officer," she said.

According to Vereshchuk, 14 civilians were also released, including 9 women.

"There are 26 of our people in total," the minister specified.

The first full-fledged exchange of prisoners of war took place on March 24 - Ukraine returned 10 of our service members in exchange for 10 occupiers. 11 civilian Russian sailors returned to Russia after being rescued from a sunken ship near Odessa. As a result of this exchange, 19 Ukrainian civilian sailors returned home from the Sapphire rescue ship, which was captured by the invaders while trying to take our military from Snake (Zmeiiny) Island.

On April 1, an exchange of prisoners of war took place between Ukraine and Russia. It was held after negotiations on the orders of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Among those who were released were 15 women. The organization of subsequent exchanges is now being carefully worked on.