Azovstal steel plant defender calls his beloved ones after prisoners of war swap between Ukraine and Russia on May 6 (Andriy Yermak/Telegram)
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak reported 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 returnedhome another 130 POWs.
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Several rounds of explosions were reported in Kyiv overnight on Feb. 22, leaving a mother and her child injured as Russia launched ballistic missiles at Ukraine.
A Russian drone attack in northeastern Ukraine's Sumy Oblast killed two brothers and a married couple, while a missile attack damaged a production facility belonging to U.S. multinational company Mondelez, authorities reported Feb. 21.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry condemned what it described as "ultimatums and blackmail" from Hungary and Slovakia after the two countries threatened to halt emergency electricity supplies.
The Votkinsk Plant is a strategic, state-owned defense enterprise and one of the most important missile factories in Russia. It produces Iskander ballistic missiles — used in attacks against Ukraine — and nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.
"I won't go into too many details, but today I can congratulate our army first and foremost —all the defense forces — because as of today, 300 (square) kilometers have been liberated," Zelensky told Agence France-Presse.
The children were returned under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, which finds and returns Ukrainian children from occupied territories and Russia, alongside the Save Ukraine organization.
The main target was Odesa Oblast, where two people were injured after drones tore into houses and a four-storey apartment block, the emergency services reported on Feb. 21.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Feb. 20, framed by authorities as a measure to counter security threats and potential attacks, granting Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) broad authority to order the disconnection of individuals from mobile and home internet services.
"We are blocking the €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine until oil transit to Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline resumes," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Feb. 20.
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