On Friday, US President Donald Trump declared that Russia and Ukraine would exchange “major” prisoners, the most significant exchange in three years of conflict.
According to an agreement reached during negotiations in Istanbul last week, Kyiv and Moscow are scheduled to exchange 1,000 individuals each; however, a senior official with knowledge of the situation stated that the exchange has not yet taken place.
Trump has promised to put an immediate end to the bloodshed, but his attempts to mediate a ceasefire in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II have so far failed.
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, the warring nations have engaged in frequent communication, but none have been thus extensive.
Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform that the exchange was “completed,” but an official stated that it was still in progress. The exchange is often kept under wraps until it is concluded, and it takes several hours.
The senior person with knowledge of the situation told AFP, “The exchange itself has not yet occurred, and the process is ongoing.”
“This could lead to something big???” Trump added.
Both nations are holding thousands of prisoners of war after 39 months of conflict.
Russia is thought to hold a greater proportion; between 8,000 and 10,000 Ukrainians are thought to be in Moscow’s custody.
The UN claims that captives on both sides have been “subjected to torture and ill-treatment,” and Kyiv and Moscow have accused one another of breaking the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
Due to extensive accusations of torture and the verified deaths of multiple Ukrainian detainees, Russia often transgresses international conventions by putting prisoners of war on trial.
In the three years that Moscow’s soldiers have seized Ukrainian towns and cities, it is also thought that an undetermined number of Ukrainian people have been transported into Russia.
Numerous high-profile incidents involving Ukrainian civilian hostages have occurred.
The body of journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who passed away while in captivity, was returned by Moscow this year.
Trialed Ukrainians have testified before Russian courts that they were subjected to and saw torture in Russia’s infamous jail system.
Return of those deemed deceased
Kyiv’s Commissioner for Missing Persons, Artur Dobroserdov, told Ukrainian media last month:
“There are more than 60,000 people missing. Around 10,000 are confirmed to be in captivity.”
With Kyiv not knowing the fate of thousands, each exchange bring surprises, a senior official told AFP.
“Almost every exchange includes people no one had knowledge about,” he said.
“Sometimes they return people who were on the lists of missing persons or were considered dead.”
A sizeable part of Ukrainian troops held in Russia were taken captive during the 2022 siege of Mariupol.
Aside from the thousands held since Moscow’s 2022 invasion, Russia also has held some Ukrainians since its 2014 Crimea annexation.
The number of Russian POWs in Ukraine is believed to be considerably smaller.
Zelensky has throughout the war encouraged the taking of Russian troops as prisoners to fill up what he calls Kyiv’s “exchange fund” for future swaps.
Ukraine took hundreds of Russian troops captive during Kyiv’s incursion into the Kursk region in 2024.
Since then, it has also claimed to have captured some North Korean soldiers who served Russia at Kursk.
A rising number of persons have also been imprisoned by Kyiv for allegedly working with Russian forces, and there is conjecture that some of these may be included in upcoming exchanges.
A Ukrainian Orthodox priest who was imprisoned for defending Russia’s aggressiveness was part of a prisoner exchange with Russia last year.
In early May, Russia claimed that some of its people from the Kursk area who had been transported to Sumy, Ukraine, were still there.The only lines of communication that remained open between the warring neighbors for three years prior to the Turkey talks were over the return of children seized into Russia during Moscow’s invasion and the exchange of prisoners and soldier remains.
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