.Ukrainian Head of state Volodymyr Zelensky announced Friday that 49 Ukrainian POWs had actually been actually returned coming from Russia, with AFP witnessing the group being greeted at the boundary along with Belarus.Zelensky performed not make clear whether it belonged to a substitution with Russia, as is actually commonly the situation, but AFP journalists had previously observed Russian hostages being filled onto a bus near the edge.It would certainly be the second substitution in between the warring countries given that Kyiv's shock attack into Russia's Kursk area.Zelensky stated private citizens were additionally one of the returnees, featuring a "lady that was actually taken hostage when she involved care for her unwell papa.".He claimed the exchange also consisted of fighters coming from Mariupol's 2022 Azovstal fight, as well as soldiers, boundary protections and law enforcement officers.AFP spoke with 2 girls in their 20s covered in Ukrainian flags and also getting blooms, who said they were at the Azovstal plant that was up to Russia after a siege in 2022." I am actually lastly home, I can not believe it," pointed out 28-year-old Tamara Miroshnikova, commander of an armed lorry of Ukraine's National Shield, claimed.Another lady, 29-year-old Tetiana Bugay, mentioned she was a medic at the Azov unit that defended Azovstal.Earlier, AFP found the Ukrainian military driving Russian POWs in a bus, some were putting on bonnets hiding their skins, which were actually removed as they were actually loaded into a minivan.AFP talked with a number of all of them briefly, and all those that communicated said they were taken captive in the course of Ukraine's unpleasant surprise Kursk aggression last month.