MOSCOW, June 9. /TASS/. Ukrainian prisoners of war from the Zakarpatye Region, located in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine, were handed over to Hungary on Thursday owing to help from the Russian Orthodox Church, as part of inter-church cooperation at the request of Budapest, the Moscow Patriarchate said.

"On June 8, 2023, a group of Ukrainian prisoners of war from the Zakarpatye Region, who took part in the fighting, was handed over to Hungary at the request of the Hungarian side, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and brokered by the Russian Orthodox Church as part of inter-church cooperation," the statement said.

It is said that the event was motivated by "Christian love of mankind." Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, chairman of the External Church Relations Department, and Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, advisor to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, took part in the event from the Moscow Patriarchate.