Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners for the first time in five months. More than 300 people were targeted
Ukraine and Russia concluded, on Thursday, in Abu Dhabi, the second round of US-mediated negotiations aimed at ending Europe's biggest conflict since World War II, with the two sides carrying out a major prisoner exchange and agreeing to resume negotiations soon.
Russia and Ukraine exchanged 157 prisoners of war each PHOTO X / Polyline @EasonPo48787
US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said delegations from the US, Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an exchange of 314 prisoners of war, which took place on Thursday. It was the first such exchange in five months, writes Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said some of the released prisoners of war had been held for nearly four years. He said the next round of negotiations would take place soon, probably in the United States.
Witkoff wrote on social media platform X: “The discussions were constructive and focused on how to create the conditions for a lasting peace”.
He said that the negotiations “demonstrates that sustained diplomatic engagement yields tangible results and promotes efforts to end the war in Ukraine”.
Zelenskiy, speaking in his late-night video speech, said Ukraine favors any diplomatic format “which can realistically bring peace closer and make it reliable, durable and of such a nature as to deprive Russia of the desire to continue the fight”.
Speaking earlier alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Zelenski said the talks had covered the main differences between the two sides.
Russia sees progress
Zelenskiy said he wanted the talks to lead to an end to the four-year war, but repeated his insistence that Ukraine must receive strong security guarantees, including from Washington, to ensure Russia does not attack again.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who participated in earlier negotiations with Russian officials and Witkoff, said imposing additional sanctions on Russia would depend on how the negotiations go. Bessent maintained his belief that Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine was illegal and continued to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.
The Russian envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, declared that progress and positive developments have been registered. He also said that work is being done to restore Russia's relations with the United States, including within a US-Russia working group on economic issues.
Russia and Ukraine exchanged 157 prisoners of war each, the Russian Ministry of Defense said. Three civilians from the Kursk region were also returned to Russia.
A video released by Ukraine's presidency showed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war – many wrapped in the national flag – getting off buses in the snow, some hugging and others crying as they spoke to relatives on cellphones.
Source: X / Tabz @TabzLIVE
The prisoner of war exchanges were the only concrete steps towards peace that resulted from the previous rounds of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, held last year in Turkey.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides were killed, wounded or disappeared in nearly four years of war.
Zelenskiy said this week that about 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed on the battlefield, but did not give details on the number of Ukrainian soldiers wounded or missing.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, said Russia suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties. Moscow dismissed the report as unreliable.
Pressure from the Trump administration
Despite pressure from the Trump administration on Kiev and Moscow to find a compromise, fighting continues to rage along the roughly 1,200 km front line.
Russian troops launched major air strikes on Ukraine on Tuesday night ahead of the talks, followed by smaller drone strikes on Wednesday and Thursday.
In his speech, Zelensky noted the “good results” achieved by the Security Service of Ukraine, highlighting an attack with long-range Flamingo missiles made in Ukraine on the Russian Oreshnik hypersonic missile test site, located near the Caspian Sea.
After talks with Tusk, Zelenskiy repeated his demands for air defense missiles and said Kiev was ready to trade its drones, in which it has become a world leader, for missiles from allies or Poland's Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets.
The Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement that its forces launched successful attacks on a Russian medium-range ballistic missile launch base last month.
The fate of the eastern Donetsk region, where the most intense fighting is taking place, remains one of the most complicated issues in the negotiations.
Moscow wants Kiev to withdraw its troops from the entire region, including from a line of heavily fortified cities considered one of Ukraine's strongest defenses.
Ukraine has said the conflict should be frozen along the current front lines and rejects any unilateral withdrawal of its forces. Kiev says it wants control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, which is in Russian-controlled territory.
The head of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom said on Thursday that Moscow is ready for international cooperation regarding the Zaporozhye plant, including with the United States, but the facility must remain Russian.
Russia occupies about 20 percent of Ukraine's national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region, captured before the 2022 invasion. Analysts say Russia has gained about 1.5 percent of Ukrainian territory since early 2024.
