Ukraine and Russia carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war on Friday involving 185 people in each camp, Moscow and Kyiv announced.
“185 Russian soldiers were repatriated from territory controlled by the Kyiv regime. In exchange, 185 prisoners of war from the Ukrainian armed forces were handed over,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, specifying that the United Arab Emirates served as mediators.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the soldiers who returned to Ukraine are “fighters from the armed forces, the national guard, the border guard service”. A civilian also returned.
Some had been in captivity since 2022, the start of the war in Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky said.
The previous exchange of prisoners of war dated May 15 and involved 205 people from each camp.
This area is one of the last areas of cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, and the only tangible result of negotiations between the two countries.
Talks on an end to the war, under American mediation, have been on hold since the start of the conflict in the Middle East, triggered at the end of February by Israeli-American bombings on Iran.
