Ukraine and Russia each exchanged 205 prisoners of war Friday, opening the first phase of a planned 1,000-for-1,000 swap amid stalled diplomacy.
Ukraine and Russia each returned 205 prisoners of war on Friday, Kyiv and Moscow said, in the first phase of a planned 1,000-for-1,000 exchange.
The swap is one of the few concrete outcomes to emerge from recent diplomatic efforts around Russia’s war in Ukraine. It came a week after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the two countries would carry out a large mutual prisoner exchange alongside a three-day U.S.-brokered ceasefire tied to Russia’s Victory Day commemorations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that most of the released Ukrainians had been held in Russian captivity since 2022, the year Moscow launched its full-scale invasion. He said the group included troops who fought at Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks and those who defended Chernobyl, which Russian forces briefly seized early in the war.
"This is the first phase of the 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner exchange," Zelenskyy said.
Russia’s defence ministry said in a social media statement that "205 Russian servicemen were returned" and that 205 Ukrainian armed forces prisoners of war were transferred in exchange. The ministry said the Russian troops were taken to Belarus, where they were receiving psychological and medical assistance.
The Russian ministry also said the United Arab Emirates provided humanitarian assistance during the return of Russian servicemen. A Euronews video summary described the exchange as mediated by the UAE, while the fuller report linked the swap to U.S.-led negotiations and Trump’s earlier announcement.
The broader diplomatic track remains fragile. Both sides have accused each other of breaching the Victory Day ceasefire, and Ukraine said Russia intensified attacks on civilians, including a barrage on Kyiv that killed at least 24 people. The Ukrainian air force said that attack involved 675 drones and 56 missiles targeting homes, apartment blocks and other civilian infrastructure.
For now, the prisoner releases stand out as the clearest confirmed result of the latest talks. Further phases of the planned exchange have not yet been detailed in the supplied reporting.
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