Russia and Ukraine carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war

Gabriel Dumitrache

23 October 2026, 15:07

Current Affairs

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Russia and Ukraine carried out a new prisoner-of-war exchange on Friday, with each side receiving 270 people, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, as cited by AFP and Agerpres. The operation takes place ahead of the resumption of direct negotiations between the two countries, scheduled for November in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that 270 Russian servicemen had been repatriated from territory controlled by Ukraine. At the same time, 270 Ukrainian prisoners of war were handed over to the other side. The authorities in Moscow made the announcement via the Max messaging app.

Prisoner exchanges take place regularly and represent one of the few forms of cooperation that remain between Russia and Ukraine. The transfer of prisoners and the remains of deceased soldiers are also the only concrete results achieved so far as a result of negotiations between the two states.

Direct talks, mediated by the United States, have been stalled since the beginning of the year. The Kremlin confirmed on Friday that a new round of negotiations will take place in November in Abu Dhabi.

Context: preparations for the resumption of talks and prisoner exchanges mediated by the United Arab Emirates

Before the resumption of negotiations, the Kremlin had announced that Putin was “prepared, in principle,” to resume trilateral negotiations with the US and Ukraine after a meeting in St. Petersburg with US envoy Steve Witkoff. At the same time, the Kremlin indicated that the war in Ukraine was “approaching its end,” and that discussions were to continue through trilateral negotiations at the technical level; Witkoff had previously also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo, where the possibility of meetings at the leaders’ level was discussed.

In parallel, discussions between Russia and Ukraine continued to be reflected in prisoner exchanges: previously, Russia and Ukraine had conducted an exchange in which each side handed over 103 servicemen, with the repatriations mediated by the United Arab Emirates, while the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the repatriated Russian soldiers had received medical and psychological treatment before being transferred to Russia, in Belarus.