Sunday rallies in support of prisoners continued in Odesa

On January 12, participants of the weekly action to remind of captured Ukrainian war prisoners gathered on Deribasovskaya Street.

They were holding traditional posters reminding them of the missing persons.

The posters were also left over from the New Year's Eve rallies on the fence of the city's main Christmas tree. On December 29, participants of the action to remind about the captured Ukrainian prisoners of war staged a rally near the main Christmas tree of the city, decorating it with posters with the inscriptions "Captivity kills", "Save my future", "Missing are not forgotten".

It should be noted that the next day, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported the return of 189 Ukrainians from captivity on New Year's Eve.

The eleventh exchange in 2024 resulted in the release of:

• 87 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 17 of whom served in territorial defense.
• 43 soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine.
• 33 soldiers of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.
• 24 soldiers of the Ukrainian Navy.

Two civilians also returned from captivity. In addition to Mariupol and Zmiinyi Island, the liberated soldiers defended Ukraine in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, and the National Guard served to protect the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Those who were captured in the Kursk region were also returned.

Many Ukrainian citizens have been held in Russian captivity for more than two and a half years. The defenders have acute chronic illnesses, consequences of mine-blast injuries, and severe wounds. This time 173 privates and sergeants and 14 officers were released.

The largest return home of Ukrainian servicemen took place on January 3, 2024. The Coordination Center was able to bring home 230 people.

The prisoner exchange that took place on the night of October 19 allowed 95 Ukrainian defenders to return home. This is the 58th prisoner exchange since the beginning of the invasion. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the peculiarity of this exchange is that many Ukrainians are returning home who received so-called "sentences" from the aggressor country's judicial system and were "convicted": 28 to long sentences and 20 to life imprisonment for defending their land from the aggressor.

Кирило Бойко