Russia’s Wagner releases over 100 Ukrainian prisoners of war for Orthodox Easter

MOSCOW, April 16 (Reuters) – Russia’s most powerful mercenary group, Wagner, sent at least 100 Ukrainian prisoners of war back to Ukrainian forces to mark Orthodox Easter, according to a video posted by the group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, on Sunday.

“Prepare all of them, feed and water them, check the wounded,” Prigozhin was shown saying in a video posted on Telegram by his press service.

A group of Ukrainian prisoners were then shown being told that they would be passed back to Ukrainian forces to mark Orthodox Easter.

“I hope you don’t fall back into our hands,” an armed Wagner soldier was told telling the men before they were ordered into a truck, some loading packs of water bottles.

More than 100 men, some limping and some being carried on stretchers by their comrades, were shown making their way in line along a muddy road as a man standing on a tank held a white flag.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said 130 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been released and returned home in a “great Easter exchange”. It was not clear how many Russians were sent back the other way.

Russia’s Wagner Group has been gradually pushing out Ukrainian forces from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Wagner now claims control of most of the city, though Ukraine has repeatedly disputed claims its forces have almost been pushed out.

Prigozhin was shown greeting refugees in the city, including a boy named Vladimir, before they were evacuated. The people appeared to be sleeping in a cramped underground cellar of some kind. Prigozhin handed out chocolate bars to the children.

In Other Developments:

FIGHTING

* Fighters of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group have captured two more areas of Bakhmut, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

* Russian missiles hit residential buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday, killing 11 people, wounding 21 and reducing parts of apartment blocks to a tangled mess of metal and concrete.

* Four were killed and 10 wounded by Ukrainian shelling of a residential area in the Russian-controlled town of Yasynuvata south of Sloviansk, the top Russian-installed official in the region said.

* A mother and her daughter were killed in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Saturday by a Russian artillery strike, the regional administration said.

* Russia’s regular spring military draft is proceeding as scheduled and there are no plans to send out mass electronic notices under a system just signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, a top official said on Saturday.

Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield reports.

ECONOMY

* A new international economic support package of $115 billion gives Ukraine more confidence that it can prevail in battling Russia’s invasion, amid growing recognition that the war could continue for longer than expected, Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko told Reuters on Saturday.

* Poland and Hungary have decided to ban imports of grain and other food from neighbouring Ukraine to protect the local agricultural sector, the two governments said on Saturday, after a flood of supply depressed prices across the region.

* Belarusian furniture company Swed House, which sells items intended to look like those made by Swedish giant IKEA, opened its first store in Moscow on Saturday to a mixed initial reaction from consumers.

PLAYING ON

* Ukrainian pianist Roman Lopatynskyi rehearsed in the dark and played concerts by candlelight as air raid sirens resounded across his native Kyiv. The 29-year-old is participating in the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz, which is being held outside Ukraine for the first time since its inception in 1995 due to the Russian invasion.

* Ukraine’s national ice hockey players have been forced to train with air raid sirens interrupting practice, sending them underground for cover as they worry about their loved ones, but they have managed to keep their focus.