Ukraine and Russia exchanged 390 prisoners on Friday. This is the largest exchange since the beginning of the war. More releases will follow this weekend. The countries will exchange a thousand detainees following the agreements in Istanbul last week.
The first phase of the “thousand for thousand” deal has been carried out, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reports on X. According to the president, “every surname and every detail” of the released persons is checked.
It concerns 270 prisoners of war and 120 civilians, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported earlier. Russia also announces that the prisoner exchange will continue “in the coming days.”
The released Russian citizens come from the Kursk region. They were captured last year during the Ukrainian occupation. Ukraine and Russia have exchanged prisoners several times since the Russian invasion in February 2022, but on a smaller scale.
Last week, the prisoner exchange was agreed upon during discussions between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul. Besides the exchange, little was achieved in the first direct talks in more than three years. Doubts were already raised beforehand about the decisiveness, because Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky were both absent.