Chernigiv Region (Ukraine) (AFP) — Russia and Ukraine exchanged 84 prisoners each on Thursday, both sides said, the latest in a series of swaps that has seen hundreds of POWs released so far this year.

This latest one came on the eve of a high-level summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday.

“I’m back in my homeland. Honestly, I never thought this would happen,” Mykyta Kaliberda, 29, a marine who was exchanged, told AFP.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media that among the exchanged prisoners were “both military personnel and civilians”, some of whom had been “held by the Russians since 2014, 2016, and 2017”.

He said “defenders of Mariupol” were also part of the swap, referring to a Ukrainian port city that

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