No quick reunion with family: what really happens to Russian POWs after exchanges — Coordination HQ
One of the Russian occupiers after the prisoner exchange on Aug. 24, 2025 (Photo: Screenshot of video / I Want to Live / YouTube)
Russian prisoners of war returning home after exchanges face
interrogations and redeployment to the front lines, not treatment,
rehabilitation, or family reunions, according to Ukraine’s Coordination
Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. The state project I Want to Live, backed by the Defense
Ministry and Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence, released the account.
The latest exchange under agreements reached earlier in
Istanbul took place on Aug. 24. Afterward, officials said, all the Russian
prisoners were moved to barracks of military unit No. 61899, the 27th Separate
Motor Rifle Brigade in the village of Mosrentgen, Moscow Oblast. The site
serves as a holding facility for exchanged POWs.
“Although Russia’s Defense Ministry releases short
propaganda clips showing prisoners speaking to relatives by phone directly from
buses, in reality once they arrive at the barracks they have no contact with
the outside world,” the Coordination Headquarters said.
During interrogations by the FSB, the soldiers live in
conditions resembling prison, officials explained. Even after that, a quick
reunion with their families is out of the question. Within three to four weeks,
they are sent back to the front. “They have no rights. Those who are lucky
enough may be captured again,” I Want to Live reported.
As an example, the group cited the cases of Saktaagai Shagaa
and Dmytro Ivanov, two Russian occupiers exchanged in June. By July and August,
both were again captured near Vovchansk. They were “thrown back into the meat
grinder” almost immediately after the exchange, with no chance to see their
families.
For the Kremlin, POWs are a resource and a bargaining chip
against Ukraine. “Just as Russia rejects peace initiatives and continues the
war and deaths, it also uses prisoners of war as leverage, refusing an
‘all-for-all’ exchange,” the Coordination Headquarters said.
On Aug. 24, Ukrainian servicemen from the Armed Forces,
National Guard, and State Border Guard Service, along with civilians, were
returned from Russian captivity. Most had been held since 2022.
Among those freed were former Kherson mayor Volodymyr
Mykolaienko, abducted by Russian forces on April 18, 2022, and journalist
Dmytro Khiliuk, seized in March 2022 in Kyiv Oblast.
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