(Updated: )
Ukraine has brought home 307 Ukrainian soldiers from Russian captivity in the second phase of its largest prisoner exchange with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on May 24.
Russia's Defense Ministry said that 307 Russian prisoners of war (POWs) have also been brought back from Ukraine and are on their way to Belarus.
An agreement on a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner exchange was said to be the only tangible result of the Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul on May 16 — the first such negotiations since 2022.
The two parties swapped 390 prisoners each in the initial phase on May 23, with the process set to continue until May 25. The Ukrainian and Russian governments confirmed they had received the lists of prisoners of war (POWs) to be exchanged on May 22.
"In just these two days, 697 people have been brought home. We expect the process to continue tomorrow," Zelensky said on X.
"Among those who returned today are warriors from our Armed Forces, the State Border Guard Service, the National Guard of Ukraine. "
The newly released POWs include 27 soldiers who defended Mariupol, as well as those who fought in the Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk sectors, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of POWs said.
The youngest member of the group is 25, while the oldest is 61, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said. For some units, this was the first instance of their soldiers being released from Russian captivity.
Ukraine's Presidential Office chief, Andriy Yermak, said that after the 1,000-for-1,000 exchange is complete, future talks with Russia could be arranged. At least 8,000 Ukrainian service members are held captive by Russia, said Iryna Vereshchuk, a Presidential Office deputy head, on May 1.
Kyiv does not publish the figures for how many Russian POWs are currently in Ukrainian custody.
"The agreement on the release of 1,000 of our people from Russian captivity was almost the only real result of the meeting in Turkey. We are working to ensure this result. We are finding out the details of each person listed on the Russian side," Zelensky said earlier this week.
While the Istanbul talks were the first direct peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine since 2022, the two sides have regularly held prisoner swaps throughout the full-scale war, with third-party countries mediating. These past exchanges were more limited in scope, usually involving over 130 captives on each side.
Ukraine has long advocated for an "all-for-all" exchange, but Russia has so far rejected the proposal.
Russia is also illegally detaining at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians, of whom only 174 have returned, according to Lubinets.
The prisoner exchange continues even as Russia does not relent in its attacks on Ukrainian civilians. Kyiv was targeted by a massive drone and missile strike overnight on May 24, with more than a dozen civilians reported injured.
Daria Shulzhenko
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