Following the exchange of captured Russian and Ukrainian military personnel, more than 100 prisoners of war from Ukraine will be allowed to rejoin their families.

206 military members from both nations participated in the prisoner swap on Saturday, which was arranged by the United Arab Emirates.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, stated that out of the 103 Ukrainian "warriors" that were set free, 82 were privates and soldiers and 21 were officers, such as border guards and police officers.

At an undisclosed location in Ukraine, photographers caught the moment when the beaming and tearful Ukrainians, draped in their nation's flag, greeted their fellow soldiers following a swap.

The men who had been freed all had shorn hair and were lean and pallid. One made an emotional phone call while kneeling on the ground with his national flag wrapped around his shoulders and staring down at his home country.In return for their freedom, Ukraine has handed over 103 Russian military personnel taken prisoner in the Kursk border region when Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion in August.

The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that all these Russians were now in Belarus, “where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance, as well as an opportunity to contact their relatives”.

It is the second such swap since Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, and occurred after mediated negotiations between the two countries.

UAE officials said that the number of captives exchanged through its mediation efforts now stood at 1,994.

On Saturday, Ukraine made a new call on the west to allow it to strike deeper into Russia, after a meeting on Friday between Joe Biden and Keir Starmer failed to produce a visible shift in British and US policies on the use of long-range weapons.

Zelenskiy has been pushing for months to use British Storm Shadow missiles, which can strike targets at least 190 miles (300km) away, to bomb airbases, missile sites and other military targets inside Russia.

So far, the US has only allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons to strike within a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.

“Russian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” the Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said on Saturday.

“Permission to strike deep into Russia will speed up the solution.”

Vladimir Putin forewarned western leaders on Thursday that enabling Ukraine to employ long-range missiles manufactured in the West would put NATO and Russia at war.

After expressing his disagreement with Starmer's position during Friday's foreign policy conference at the White House, Biden told reporters, "I do not think much about Vladimir Putin."