Ukraine and Russia began a major prisoner exchange Friday, May 23, which if completed would be the biggest swap since Moscow invaded more than three years ago. Both sides received 390 people in the first stage on Friday, and are expected to exchange 1,000 each in total under an agreement reached at direct talks in Istanbul last week. The process is set to last three days, Kyiv said.
The enemies have held regular exchanges since Russia launched its 2022 attack – but none have been of this scale. "The first stage of the '1,000-for-1,000' exchange agreement has been carried out," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X. "Today – 390 people. On Saturday and Sunday, we expect the exchange to continue."
Russia said it had received 270 Russian troops and 120 civilians, including some from parts of the Kursk region that were captured and held by Kyiv for months. The two sides have not yet revealed the identities of those exchanged.
US President Donald Trump earlier congratulated the two countries for the swap. "This could lead to something big???" he wrote in a post on Truth Social. Trump's efforts to broker a ceasefire in Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II have thus far been unsuccessful, despite his pledge to rapidly end the fighting.
After 39 months of fighting, thousands of POWs are held in both countries. Russia is believed to have the larger share, with the number of Ukrainian captives held by Moscow estimated to be between 8,000 and 10,000.
Kyiv and Moscow have both accused each other of violating the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs, with the UN saying prisoners on both sides have been "subjected to torture and ill-treatment." Shortly before the exchange, Kyiv released a statement accusing the Russian army of executing around 270 Ukrainian POWs since its invasion.
Russia regularly violates international norms by putting POWs on trial – with allegations of torture widespread and several Ukrainian captives confirmed to have died in custody. Moscow's forces are also believed to have taken an unknown number of Ukrainian civilians into Russia in three years of seizing Ukrainian towns and cities.
There have been several high-profile cases of Ukrainian civilian captives. Moscow this year returned the body of journalist Viktoria Roshchyna, who died in captivity. Ukrainians put on trial have told Russian courts they experienced and witnessed torture in Russia's notorious prison system.
Kyiv's commissioner for missing persons, Artur Dobroserdov, told Ukrainian media last month: "There are more than 60,000 people missing. Around 10,000 are confirmed to be in captivity."
With Kyiv not knowing the fate of thousands, each exchange brings surprises, a senior official told Agence France-Presse. "Almost every exchange includes people no one had knowledge about," he said. "Sometimes they return people who were on the lists of missing persons or were considered dead."
The number of Russian POWs in Ukraine is believed to be considerably smaller. Zelensky has throughout the war encouraged the taking of Russian troops as prisoners to fill up what he calls Kyiv's "exchange fund" for future swaps. Ukraine took hundreds of Russian troops captive during Kyiv's incursion into the Kursk region in 2024. It has since also said it took some North Korean soldiers captive who fought for Russia in Kursk.