Russia has imprisoned more than 1,000 Ukrainian citizens, more than half of whom are women, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said. She demanded on television that they be released immediately.
“We will not exchange soldiers for civilians; that would be a violation of the Geneva Conventions,” said the politician.
Ukraine has imprisoned more than 700 Russian soldiers, according to Vereshchuk, and the Russian army is said to have about the same number of Ukrainian soldiers. According to her, a new exchange of prisoners of war is possible.
Between 2,500 and 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and about 10,000 injured in seven weeks of fighting, President Volodimir Zelensky told CNN. He compared that to the approximately 20,000 soldiers he believes the Russians have lost.
Moscow itself mentioned several 1,351 at the end of last month.
