Russia and Ukraine Agree to Large Prisoner Exchange After Abu Dhabi Talks
After two days of U.S.-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi, Russia and Ukraine agreed to their largest prisoner exchange of the war, with U.S. envoy Jared Kushner saying the numbers will be set on Thursday. No deal was reached on a ceasefire or territory.
Russia and Ukraine agreed to a large exchange of prisoners of war after two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, the first concrete result from the first direct meeting between the two sides in nine months.
Jared Kushner, the U.S. envoy who helped lead the American delegation, said the swap would be the largest release of prisoners since the war began. “One of the positives is we agreed that we’re going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we’re going to finalise the numbers tomorrow,” Kushner said after the talks ended.
Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation, and Rustem Umerov, who led the Ukrainian delegation, both confirmed the planned exchange. Medinsky said details would be made public soon. Russian state news agency TASS, citing Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, reported that the exchange could take place in the next two to three weeks and involve more than 1,000 captives on each side.
Talks end without a deal on territory
The prisoner agreement was the clearest outcome of the two-day round, which the United States mediated. The talks also covered security guarantees for Ukraine and a possible new European security framework, but the two sides showed no sign of giving ground on territory, which remains the main obstacle to a wider settlement.
Medinsky said the delegations reached a common understanding on some points and not on others, and that more talks would follow. He was cool on the idea of European countries joining future rounds, saying Moscow had received no concrete peace proposal from Europe. Representatives of European governments, the European Union and NATO were in Abu Dhabi and consulted with the Ukrainian delegation, officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the first day of talks “constructive and quite substantive.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the meeting “very productive” while cautioning that a halt to the fighting would take time.
Diplomacy continues in Moscow and Dublin
Kushner said he and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff would travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, then fly to Dublin to meet Zelenskyy. Umerov said the Ukrainian delegation would also meet European officials later.
The talks took place as fighting continued. Russia struck the southern Zaporizhzhia region and the eastern city of Kharkiv overnight, wounding seven civilians and damaging property, according to the Associated Press. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 627 Ukrainian drones overnight, 150 of them over the region around St. Petersburg, and that a drone started a fire at the port of Ust-Luga, injuring three workers.
The first day of the talks ended without a deal. The prisoner exchange agreement came on the second and final scheduled day.
Reporting based on coverage by Reuters, the Associated Press and TASS.
