Ukraine and Russia have concluded a second day of United States-brokered negotiations in the United Arab Emirates without achieving a breakthrough towards ending Russia’s war.
The two sides agreed to each hand over 157 prisoners of war, with officials from Ukraine and the US as well as Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirming on Thursday that the exchange had taken place.
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US special envoy Steve Witkoff – who led the American mediation team alongside Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law – said that while “significant work remains” in peace negotiations to end the war, the prisoner swap showed that “sustained diplomatic engagement is delivering tangible results and advancing efforts to end the war in Ukraine.”
Progress was also reached towards strengthening US-Russian engagement. According to the US military’s European Command, the two sides agreed to re-establish high-level military-to-military dialogue, which has been suspended since 2021.
The channel “will provide a consistent military-to-military contact as the parties continue to work towards a lasting peace”, the European Command said in a statement.
Before Thursday’s session concluded, Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev told state media: “Things are moving forward in a good, positive direction.” He also said active work was under way to restore Russia’s relations with the US, including within the framework of a US-Russia working group on the economy.
However, he criticised what he described as attempts by European nations to “disrupt” and “meddle” in the process.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy remained cautious, saying Ukraine would remain “as constructive as possible” even though the process is “certainly not easy”.
“We want faster results,” he added during a news conference in Kyiv alongside visiting Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The first round of trilateral negotiations took place in late January but appeared to make little progress on the vital question of territory. Moscow is demanding Kyiv cede a fifth of the Donetsk region that it still controls, which Zelenskyy’s government is refusing to do.
The trilateral talks are due to continue in the coming weeks, according to a communique from Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov. Zelenskyy said that round is likely to be held in the US.
Prisoner exchange deal
The Russian state news agency RIA reported that Russia and Ukraine exchanged 157 prisoners of war each, citing the Defence Ministry. Three civilians from the Kursk region were also returned to Russia.
Among the Ukrainians released were 19 “who were illegally sentenced, 15 of them to life imprisonment,” according to Zelenskyy’s aide Kyrylo Budanov. Seven of those freed are civilians, said the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights, Dmytro Lubinets.
Photos shared by Zelenskyy on X showed several of the newly released prisoners with shaved heads and cloaked in Ukrainian flags.
The exchange marked the first such agreement between the two nations in several months. The last time Moscow and Kyiv conducted a prisoner swap was on October 2 as part of agreements made during three rounds of direct negotiations held in Istanbul earlier that year.
Thursday’s talks came before the war’s four-year anniversary on February 24. In a rare disclosure of battlefield losses, Zelenskyy estimated this week that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s 2022 invasion. He added that thousands more remain missing and it was the staggering human toll that had brought both sides to the negotiating table.
Continued attacks
Even as the swap was being finalised, the violence continued. In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said an overnight Russian drone attack wounded two elderly women and damaged residential buildings, an office block and a kindergarten. A man was also hurt in the surrounding Kyiv region, the regional governor said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 183 drones at Ukraine overnight and air defences shot down 156 of the drones.
The Russian strikes have knocked out energy supplies to hundreds of apartment blocks in the Ukrainian capital during the coldest weeks of winter. Klitschko said it may take two months to repair one damaged power plant that supplies heat to around 1,100 of the buildings.
On Wednesday, Russian forces also shelled Ukraine’s eastern city of Druzhkivka, killing at least seven people at a crowded market.
The attack, using cluster munitions, targeted the market during a typically busy time on Wednesday morning, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said. Fifteen people were injured, he said. The oldest victim was 81.