Ukraine and Russia hold new prisoner exchange: exclusive video from SBU

a new stage of the prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia took place on 23 July. The Security Service of Ukraine has published exclusive footage showing the return of Ukrainian servicemen to their homeland.

The SBU stressed that the operation was the result of joint work of the Joint Centre for the Coordination of the Search and Release of Prisoners of War, the Coordination Headquarters and other authorised bodies acting on the instructions of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelensky stated:

"The life of every Ukrainian is the highest value. We continue to fulfil the task of returning all our citizens from captivity".

This time, seriously wounded and seriously ill defenders of Ukraine, many of whom had spent more than three years in captivity, returned home. All those released have been promised the necessary medical care and social support.

Ninth exchange under the Istanbul agreements

The 23 July exchange was the ninth under the agreements reached at the Istanbul talks.

• Ukraine has returned more than 1,000 citizens since May 2025.

• The first three stages of the exchange took place on 23-25 May in the "1,000 by 1,000" format - it was one of the largest exchanges since the start of the full-scale war.

The head of the Defence Ministry's GUR, Kirill Budanov, noted that most of the released military personnel needed urgent rehabilitation. He emphasised that the conditions in the Russian camps were extremely harsh, which particularly affected the health of the soldiers.

Earlier Socialportal wrote about the story of the Ukrainian human rights activist Maxim Butkevich, who spent more than two years in Russian captivity. Maksym was sentenced to 13 years in the Russian Federation on a trumped-up case, which claimed that he was an extremist who ran a group of far-right radicals. These charges shocked everyone who knew Maksim. He was a human rights activist for decades, co-founder of the organisation Without Borders, and one of the few people in Ukraine who cared about the fate of asylum seekers, refugees, and foreign students who faced arbitrariness, rudeness, and intolerance. He also helped political refugees stemming from authoritarian regimes, primarily Putin's.