President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced the release of another 95 Ukrainian defenders from Russian captivity.

"We continue to bring our people back home. Another 95 defenders have been released from Russian captivity. They are the fighters from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), the National Guard, the border guards," he said on the Telegram channel on Wednesday.

The head of state thanked the entire team that is engaged in the prisoner swap procedure and the United Arab Emirates for its assistance.

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on the Telegram channel among those released there are 49 AFU servicemen (including a participant of the "air bridge," who volunteered to fly to Azovstal by helicopter in order to help the detachments blocked there, and two Air Force fighters), 21 National Guard soldiers, ten naval officers, seven territorial defense fighters, five border guards, two servicemen from the State Transport Special Service, and one defender from a territorial community volunteer unit.

All those released are men: 88 privates and sergeants, seven officers. The majority of them were captivated since 2022. One of the men was reported missing. Many of them suffer from the consequences of their wounds, chronic diseases, and need a long-term treatment.

Twenty-three servicemen are the defenders of Mariupol, including 13 Azovstal defenders. Forty-one servicemen fought in the Donetsk direction, nine in the Luhansk and Zaporizhia directions each, and three in the Kherson and Kharkiv directions each.

This was the 54th prisoner swap since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Headquarters said.

Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram that 3,405 Ukrainians have returned from captivity since the outbreak of Russia's full-scale invasion.