Ukraine seeking exchange of 1,200 prisoners with Russia

Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine and the head of his security council, stated that Ukraine hopes to resume the exchange with Russia of prisoners, in which 1,200 Ukrainians would be released.“We are … counting on the resumption of exchanges,” Zelensky made the statement in a video that was posted on Telegram on Sunday. “Many meetings, negotiations and calls are now devoted to this.”His security chief, Rustem Umerov, said on Saturday he had held consultations in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, with the support of Kyiv’s partners, on resuming the process of exchanges.“As a result of these negotiations, the parties agreed to return to the Istanbul agreements,” He said. “This concerns the release of 1,200 Ukrainians,” Umerov said in a statement on Telegram.There was no immediate comment from Moscow on Ukraine’s statements.The Istanbul agreements are prisoner-exchange understandings brokered with Turkish mediation in 2022, setting out rules for large, co-ordinated swaps between Russia and Ukraine.Since then, the two have traded thousands of prisoners, though exchanges have been sporadic and often disrupted by front-line escalation in the war Russia launched against Ukraine in February 2022.Umerov said that consultations would take place in the near future to decide the procedural and organisational details of the process.“We are working without pause so that Ukrainians who are to return from captivity can celebrate New Year and Christmas at home — at the family table and with their loved ones,” Umerov told Reuters
2025-11-16 12:18:27