Il Nuovo Postiglione - Ukrainians beg for news of missing soldiers as prisoners return

Denys Nepotribna could not hear his tearful 26-year-old wife in the din.

And he was among the soldiers surprised to see the woman climb onto a two metre (6.5 feet) high wall to get a better view.

Nepotribna fell into the arms of her husband and the other former prisoners surrounded them as though forming a protective shield around their reunion. She was then carried in the crowd having nearly lost conscious in the emotion of the moment.

"I held on to him like a vulture," she told AFP. "He says he said something, but I don't remember what it was."

The couple had one of the rare happy endings from the latest return of Ukrainians from Russian captivity.

At least one other woman emerged from the crowd in tears, unable to find the soldier she had been looking for in the crowd.

- Desperate soldiers' wives -

Russia and Ukraine agreed at talks in Istanbul last week to each free more than 1,000 prisoners of war and to send back the bodies of war dead. All of those freed were wounded or aged under 25.

The first stages of the swap took place on Monday and Tuesday, with Russia on Wednesday also handing back the bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers killed since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.

The oldest Ukrainian soldier freed on Thursday was 59, the youngest 22. They included some who had been listed as "missing in action," Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said.

The freed soldiers were besieged by distraught families looking for news of missing fighters.

Under the window of the building where the soldiers were taken, people held up banners with the pictures of missing soldiers. Dozens of identity pictures are also stuck to the walls. Families begged the returning troops to look at the images and shouted their names and brigade numbers hoping for news.

Wounded soldiers, some without legs and other limbs, were pushed in wheelchairs. One looked at the pictures as he moved through the crowd. "That one is alive," he said after seeing one photo.

One soldier walked through with a Ukrainian flag around his shoulders. "Mum, I am in Ukraine and I will soon be home," he shouted, in Russian, into a mobile phone.

Cries of joy and tears of sadness were passed through other phones as other soldiers made their presence known.

Iryna Melnyk said she found out during an exchange on Tuesday that her son, missing for the past two years, was alive.

"Two men told me that he was alive and in captivity," said the 44-year-old.

"I recorded them by video to show that my son is alive and that he must be saved," she added.

"I showed a photo of my son. I said: 'Look. 57th Brigade. Melnik.' And he looked at me and and recognised my son," she said.

The prisoner exchanges are one of the rare areas where the war rivals have been able to agree after more than three years of conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Ukrainian officials said more exchanges were expected in the coming days despite wrangling between the two sides.

Russian state media showed Moscow's troops in camouflage chanting "Russia, Russia" with national flags around their shoulders as they returned on Thursday.

According to a Ukrainian interior ministry estimate given in December, about 60,000 Ukrainian civilians and soldiers are considered missing in the chaos of the war.

M.Vacanti--INP