Ukraine announced that it had also secured the release of Adik, the hero dog of the Azovstal plant, from Russian captivity after he was gifted to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov after the fall of Mariupol in May.

Anton Gerashenko, one of the advisors of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Denys Monastyrskyi, announced this on Saturday.

Gerashenko was one of those who in June, based on footage in the Russian media, reported that the occupiers had given Kadyrov an American pit bull terrier Adik after handing over the last Ukrainian fighters from the Azovstal plant.

In June, a Ukrainian official noted that Adik was recognized by relatives of one of the Ukrainian servicemen who was in captivity at the time.

Ukraine announced on Saturday that it had carried out a new exchange of prisoners with Russia, the head of the Office of the President in Kyiv, Andriy Yermak, said in a Telegram statement that 140 soldiers had returned home.

One of the press agencies of the Russian state, TASS, in turn reported that the Russian army had removed 82 militants.

Ukraine secured the release of soldiers captured at the Azovstal plant for the first time on September 22 during a prisoner exchange in which it handed over to Moscow oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Among those released at the time were the commanders of the “Azov” regiment, who faced 20 years in prison in Russia after the Supreme Court in Moscow recognized the military unit as a “terrorist organization” in August.