Volunteers from all over the world are supporting Ukraine on the ground - many helping to evacuate civilians from heavily contested areas. Two Britons did not survive this. In January, the Russian Wagner boss Prigozhin announced that their bodies had been found. Now these have been handed over to Ukraine.
In a recent prisoner swap with Russia, Ukraine also recovered the bodies of two Britons killed in an aid operation. "We managed to hold back the bodies of dead foreign volunteers," the head of the presidential office in Kyiv, Andriy Yermak, told Telegram.
The two Britons named there, aged 28 and 48, had helped in eastern Ukraine to get civilians out of combat zones. Yermak also released video and photos of the 116 Ukrainian prisoners previously released.
In January, the head of Russia's private army Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, announced that he had found the body of a missing British man, along with ID and the documents of a second British citizen. The British Foreign Office later announced in London, citing family members, that the missing men were dead. According to the statement, they died trying to evacuate from the city of Soledar. The city is now under Russian control.
"We're going on. We're bringing everyone back," Yermak said after the largest prisoner swap since the beginning of the year. In return, 63 prisoners were allowed to return to Russia. In the nearly year-long war that began on February 24, Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly exchanged prisoners. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine alone has so far freed 1,762 Ukrainian citizens from captivity.
