Ukraine and Russia exchanged 50 military and civilian prisoners on Thursday, the largest swap reported to date, including sailors captured during Moscow’s assault near the infamous Snake Island, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said.
Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine had returned 11 Russian civilian sailors rescued from a sunken ship near Odesa.
In return, 19 Ukrainian civilian sailors were being sent home after being captured from the rescue ship "Sapphire", which was taken by Russian forces during their assault on Snake Island.
Ms Vereshchuk said that under the terms of the exchange, the boat itself would also be returned to Ukraine and sent to a port in Turkey.
During the early stages of the war last month, a group of Ukrainian soldiers posted to Snake Island, known as Zmiyyny, in the Black Sea, refused to surrender, telling a Russian warship to “go f*** yourself”.
The group were feared to have been killed but it later emerged that they were alive and had been taken prisoner.
It was not immediately clear whether the Ukrainian soldiers stationed on the island were among Thursday’s freed captives.
Commenting directly on those troops, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine wrote earlier in the day that it hoped to “soon return captive Ukrainian soldiers from the island of Zmiyyny, exchanging them for Russian sailors”.
Late last month Russian state media showed the arrival of the Snake Island soldiers in Sevastopol, Crimea, where they were reportedly being held.
They were captured after a Russian military vessel arrived at the island, told the guards to lay down their weapons and warned they would be “bombed” otherwise, according to audio clips picked up by local media and shared online.
Two Ukrainian guards were then heard saying “should I tell them to go f*** themselves?” before responding: “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.”
An earlier statement from Ukraine suggested they were then killed by air and sea strikes. Ukraine’s interior ministry said the audio recording was authentic, and the soldiers – who it had presumed were dead – would be given military honours.
Russia denied killing the soldiers, saying they had surrendered. It later emerged that they had surrendered despite repelling two Russian attacks “due to the lack of ammunition”, the Ukrainian navy said.
Snake Island is a largely uninhabited but strategically important strip of land in the Black Sea, about 186 miles west of Crimea.
