Ukraine, Russia exchange POWs for first time in months

Ukraine and Russia have conducted their first prisoner exchange in months, each releasing at least 157 people, both countries said Thursday, amid US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the war.

The two sides have in the past conducted several rounds of prisoner swaps, one of the rare areas of direct cooperation between Ukraine and Russia amid the four-year war, but last month Kyiv accused Moscow of halting the exchanges.

On Thursday, amid three-way talks in Abu Dhabi, the countries swapped 157 captured soldiers and civilians each in an exchange mediated by Washington — the first since October.

“Today’s exchange came after a long pause, and it is critical that we were able to make it happen. I thank everyone who works to make these exchanges possible,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.

Images he posted showed the released prisoners, their heads freshly shaven, wrapped in Ukrainian flags and smiling amid falling snow.

Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said among the 157 Ukrainians released “are seven civilians and those whom the Russians unlawfully convicted.”

Zelensky’s aide Kyrylo Budanov said that in the group of the freed prisoners were 19 Ukrainians “who were illegally sentenced, 15 of them to life imprisonment.”

Russia, who said the United States and United Arab Emirates acted as mediators for the exchange, announced earlier it had handed over 157 Ukrainian soldiers and that 157 Russian servicemen were returned.

“In addition, three Russian citizens, residents of the Kursk region... will be returned home,” the Russian defense ministry said in a statement.

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region in 2024.

Russia and Ukraine each sent back more prisoners of war on Sunday in the latest in a series of exchanges that has seen hundreds of POWs released this year, the two sides said.

Large-scale prisoner exchanges were the only tangible result of three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul between May and July.

They remain one of the few areas of cooperation between the two countries since Russia’s offensive began in 2022.

“On August 24,2025,  146 Russian servicemen were returned from the territory controlled” by Kyiv, the Russian defense ministry said on Telegram.

“In exchange, 146 prisoners of war of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were transferred” to Ukraine, it added. Ukraine did not confirm any figures for the release.

Russia also said that “eight citizens of the Russian Federation — residents of the Kursk region, illegally detained” by Kyiv were also returned.

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August last year, seizing hundreds of square kilometers (miles) of territory in a major setback for the Kremlin.

Russia deployed thousands of troops from its ally North Korea as part of a counterattack, but did not fully reclaim the region until April.

Among the Ukrainians released on Sunday was journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Khyliuk “was kidnapped in the Kyiv region in March 2022. He is finally home in Ukraine,” Zelensky said on social media.

Also freed was former Kherson mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko, “who spent more than three years in captivity,” Zelensky’s aide Andriy Yermak wrote on X.

“In 2022, he was on the list for return, but Volodymyr voluntarily refused to be exchanged in favor of a seriously ill prisoner with whom he was sharing a cell in a Russian prison,” Yermak said.