Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
We're coming to you live from our studio in central London.
I'm Lise Doucette.
And we start in Ukraine, in their brutal war.
A war in which there are occasional moments of joy.
When prisoners finally come home, when families rejoice.
The latest and the largest exchange of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war.
has now been underway.
A total of 2,000 people could be allowed to return to their homes over three days.
It was the only concrete result to emerge from the recent face-to-face talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul.
What's it like to be there, to finally see prisoners coming home?
Petro Yatsenko is with the Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
It's fascinating feelings and every time it brings a lot of energy to every one of us
because these people,
Ukrainians, was in Russian captivity almost for two or even three years.
Of course,
they are very happy and it's a very big achievement for us and a lot of work of a very big team of the coordination headquarters.
In the emotion, though, some worry about the physical condition.
of the prisoners and, of course, their own emotional state?
Our released former prisoners of war have no sufficient food.