Russia and Ukraine held another prisoner swap on January 31 that Kyiv said involved 207 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs). Russia said 195 of its troops were taken back in the process in exchanged for the same number of Ukrainian soldiers.
"Our people are back. 207 of them. We return them home no matter what," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The discrepancy in the number of Ukrainians involved is likely due to the fact that the Russia figures include only military personnel.
"We remember each Ukrainian in captivity,” Zelenskiy wrote, adding, "Both warriors and civilians. We must bring all of them back. We are working on it.
An exchange of POWs was initially supposed to take place one week ago, on January 24.
However, on the same day Moscow accused Ukraine of shooting down a Russian military cargo plane that crashed in the Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, killing all 74 people on board, including 65 Ukrainian POWs who were on their way to a prisoner exchange.
SEE ALSO: Why Did The Russian Il-76 Crash? What We Know, And Don't Know, About A Major Aviation DisasterThere has been no direct confirmation from Kyiv on the Russian claims that the plane had Ukrainian POWs on board or that the aircraft was downed by a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile.
Earlier this month, the two sides held the biggest swap since the Kremlin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A total of 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war were exchanged for 248 Russians in that deal on January 3.
Meanwhile, Ukraine on the afternoon of January 31 declared an air alert for all its territory after the Ukrainian Air Force detected Russian MiG-31K warplanes, which can carry hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, taking off from Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region.
Earlier in the day, at least four people -- three men and a woman -- were wounded and infrastructure was damaged in a Russian drone strike on the eastern region of Kharkiv, regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said.
Separately, the Ukrainian Air Force said the air defense shot down 14 out of the 20 drones that Russia's military launched at targets inside Ukraine on January 31. The drones were shot down in the Mykolayiv, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, and Kharkiv regions, the air force said in a statement.
On January 30, Russian missile and drone strikes killed three people across Ukraine.