China welcomes latest round of Ukraine-Russia talks and POW swap
China welcomes the latest round of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine and the agreement between the two sides on prisoner exchanges and other humanitarian issues, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
As reported, the third round of negotiations between the delegations of Ukraine and Russia took place in Istanbul, Turkey on Wednesday evening, lasting less than an hour.
The next day, the ninth stage of the prisoner exchange between Ukraine and the Russian Federation took place. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as a result of the agreements in Istanbul, Ukrainian defenders were returned from Russian captivity - wounded and seriously ill soldiers of the Air Assault Troops, Navy, Troops of the Defense Forces, State Border Guard Service, National Guard, National Police. They defended Ukraine in all key areas: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv. Among the freed defenders are soldiers, sergeants, officers. Some spent more than 3 years in captivity. The youngest is 27, the oldest is 66.