Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners on Friday and said they would free more in the coming days, in what is expected to be the biggest prisoner swap of the war so far.
An agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners each was the only concrete step towards peace to emerge last week from the first direct talks between the warring sides in more than three years, when they failed to agree a ceasefire.
Both sides said they had each released 270 soldiers and 120 civilians so far, with more due to be released on Saturday and Sunday.
The freed Russians were in Belarus, which neighbours Ukraine, receiving psychological and medical assistance before being moved to Russia for further care, the Russian defence ministry said. They include civilians captured inside Russia’s Kursk region during a Ukrainian incursion.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted photographs of released captives, all with shaven heads, celebrating their release and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
Ukrainian media outlet Espreso TV published a video of the wife of a prisoner crying tears of joy, wrapped in a flag on Kyiv’s Independence Square. She said she had been waiting for her husband’s release since 2022, and had just received the call from Ukrainian authorities confirming the good news.
“We waited, hoped and fought,” said the woman, whose name was given as Victoria.
Earlier, Ukrainian authorities told reporters to assemble at a location in the northern Chernihiv region in anticipation that some freed prisoners could be brought there.
Referring to the prisoner swap earlier on Friday, US president Donald Trump, who had pressed the sides to meet last week, wrote on Truth Social: “Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???”
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are believed to have been wounded or killed on both sides in Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second World War, although neither side publishes accurate casualty figures. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have also died as Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine says it is ready for a 30-day ceasefire immediately.
Russia, which launched the war by invading its neighbour in 2022 and now occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, says it will not pause its assaults until conditions are first met. A member of the Ukrainian delegation called those conditions “non-starters”.
Mr Trump, who has shifted US policy from supporting Ukraine towards accepting some of Russia’s account of the war, had said he could tighten sanctions on Moscow if it blocked peace. But after speaking to Mr Putin on Monday by phone he decided to take no action for now.
Moscow says it is ready for talks while the fighting goes on, and wants to discuss what it calls the war’s “root causes”, including its demands that Ukraine cede more territory and be disarmed and barred from military alliances with the West. Kyiv says this is tantamount to surrender and would leave the country defenceless in the face of future Russian attacks.
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Russia claimed on Friday to have captured a settlement called Rakivka in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.
The governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said Russia had struck port infrastructure there with two missiles on Friday afternoon, killing one person and wounding eight. – Reuters
