Russia says 63 Russian troopers have been launched whereas Ukrainian authorities say 116 of their servicemen have been freed, amid continued preventing within the east.

Ukraine has launched dozens of Russian troopers as a part of a negotiation brokered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Russia’s defence ministry has mentioned, the identical day 116 Ukrainian servicemen have been additionally freed as preventing rages within the japanese metropolis of Bakhmut.

“An advanced negotiations course of resulted in 63 Russian servicemen returned from the Ukrainian territory”, the ministry mentioned on Saturday, as quoted by TASS information company. It added that individuals of a “delicate class” have been additionally included within the deal, due to the mediation of the Gulf nation.

The ministry didn’t present particulars on who falls inside the “delicate” group, however specialists say that in previous exchanges it referred to a variety of individuals, together with spies and civilians holding delicate data.

All the launched troopers are presently in Russia, the ministry mentioned, including that they have been being given medical help and entry to contact their households.

The UAE maintains shut ties with Moscow and stays one of many international locations not supporting Western sanctions in opposition to Russia.

Final October, President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Saint Petersburg the place the Russian chief described relations between the 2 international locations as “an essential issue of stability”.

Whereas the Russian ministry didn’t confer with the occasion as a prisoner trade in its feedback on Saturday, later the identical day Ukraine’s presidency confirmed the discharge of 116 Ukrainians, together with fighters caught within the battle of Mariupol and Kherson.

The Coordination Headquarters for the Remedy of Prisoners of Struggle posted a message on its Telegram channel saying that the liberation got here as a part of an operation that passed off “in a number of phases”.

A majority of 87 of these freed have been from the Ukrainian common arm forces. Eight servicemen have been from army intelligence whereas others belonged to the navy and the nationwide guards. At the least 23 of the launched have been injured or sick, the Ukrainian workplace mentioned, including that some have misplaced limbs as a result of frostbite.

The Coordination Headquarters additionally mentioned that the repatriation of the our bodies of British volunteers, Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Perry, passed off as a part of the operation.

Prisoners’ exchanges between the 2 international locations have turn into extra common in latest months. In a shock transfer in September, greater than 300 troopers have been swapped, marking the most important trade since Moscow’s invasion final February. Two extra passed off in December and the most recent in January noticed Ukraine and Russia liberating no less than 50 prisoners every.

“This marks a profitable trade, a dialogue,” mentioned Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi. “As a lot as the 2 international locations proceed to construct partitions between them in the course of the warfare, it’s exchanges like these that present that there are cracks on the wall and that there’s sufficient daylight to proceed to swap prisoners and our bodies,” Basravi mentioned, reporting from Kyiv.

The discharge of prisoners on each side comes as intense preventing continues round Bakhmut within the japanese Donetsk area.

Moscow says Russian forces are encircling the town from a number of instructions and battling to take management of a street that can be an essential provide route for Ukrainian forces.

In a defiant touch upon Friday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned that nobody will give up Bakhmut. “We’ll struggle so long as we will,” he mentioned, standing shoulder to shoulder with European Council President Charles Michel, who was on his second go to to Kyiv in lower than three weeks, and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen.