New Delhi, Oct. 23 -- MOSCOW - Russia's Defense Ministry said 270 Russian servicemen returned from Ukrainian captivity on Friday in an exchange for 270 Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The returned Russian personnel were in Belarus, where Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova was working with them, according to the ministry's statement supplied for this report.

The ministry dated the exchange October 23. It did not identify the released personnel, disclose how long they had been held or describe their condition.

The announcement accounts for 540 military prisoners across the two sides. That total comes from the Russian ministry's figures, not an independently verified list of those released.

Earlier on Friday, Belarus's state n...