Main points
- More than 1,000 Russian soldiers have returned to Russia after a prisoner exchange with Ukraine since May 2025.
- Some of them did not receive rehabilitation or leave – those released were sent back to the front.
Russians released from captivity are sent back to war / Photo by Russian media
Since May 2025, there have been several large-scale prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia, during which more than 1,000 soldiers have returned to the aggressor country. However, some of them never made it home.
Instead of rehabilitation or leave, the occupiers were promptly sent back to their units, and some are already forced to go on assaults again. This was reported on Tuesday, July 1, in the project “I Want to Live” with reference to the investigation of The Insider, reports 24 Kanal .
After captivity – back to the front
After a series of prisoner exchanges, Russian authorities took some of the soldiers to the Moscow region for “filtration,” and immediately turned some back toward the front lines. Journalists and human rights activists are receiving complaints about this en masse from freed Russians and their relatives.
There was an exchange, our friend was included in it. He was supposed to go home. As I understand it, halfway through the bus was simply turned around – they went back to the front, – says the Russian woman.
How Russians are sent to war after returning from captivity: watch the video
“I Want to Live” notes that if Ukraine really fights for each of its citizens in Russian prisons, then Russia returns its own only for repeated “use as cannon fodder.” The occupiers are presented as heroes only during the “show-off for the camera” in the first minutes after the exchange.
Let us recall that among the bodies of the dead transferred to Ukraine during the repatriation, the remains of at least 20 Russian soldiers were found. This could have been done intentionally, in order to increase the number of transferred bodies and to overload the experts with work.
