Ukraine and Russia carried out their largest prisoner exchange in five months on Thursday, emerging from a second round of U.S.-brokered talks with a rare concrete outcome in nearly four years of war but little sign of an imminent breakthrough toward peace.
Delegations from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow met in Abu Dhabi, where they agreed to swap 314 prisoners of war and resume negotiations soon, possibly in the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the discussions were “constructive” and focused on creating conditions for a “durable peace.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the exchange, noting that some of the freed soldiers had been held for nearly four years.
Video released by his office showed dozens of Ukrainian POWs, many wrapped in national flags, stepping off buses into the snow, hugging one another and breaking down in tears as they called relatives.
“These talks matter only if they realistically bring peace closer,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address, stressing that any deal must be lasting and strip Russia of the incentive to resume fighting.
Russia’s envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, described the talks as showing “positive movement,” saying efforts were underway to restore U.S.-Russia ties, including through a bilateral working group on economic issues.
According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, each side released 157 prisoners. Moscow also said three civilians from the Kursk region had been returned.
Prisoner swaps have been the only tangible confidence-building measures to emerge from previous rounds of negotiations, including talks held last year in Türkiye. The broader war, now nearing its fourth year, has killed, wounded or displaced hundreds of thousands on both sides.
Zelenskyy has said about 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, without providing figures for the wounded or missing. A Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, estimates Russia has suffered nearly 1.2 million casualties, figures Moscow dismisses as unreliable.
Despite diplomatic pressure from the Trump administration, fighting has intensified along the roughly 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) front line. Russian forces launched major airstrikes ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks and followed up with drone attacks this week.
Zelenskyy highlighted recent Ukrainian strikes, including the use of domestically produced long-range Flamingo missiles against a Russian testing site near the Caspian Sea. He renewed appeals for air-defense systems, offering Ukraine’s drones or Poland’s Soviet-era MiG-29 jets in exchange.
At the negotiating table, the deepest rifts remain unresolved. Russia is pressing Ukraine to withdraw from the entire eastern Donetsk region, including heavily fortified cities that anchor Kyiv’s defenses.
Ukraine has rejected any unilateral pullback, proposing instead to freeze the conflict along current front lines and regain control of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Moscow occupies about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea and parts of the Donbas seized before and after the 2022 invasion. Analysts say Russian forces have gained roughly 1.5% more territory since early 2024.
Even as talks continue, civilians remain caught in the crossfire. A Russian drone strike killed a couple in the southern Zaporizhzhia region overnight, local officials said, while a 14-year-old boy was wounded in a separate attack. Ukrainian authorities also reported fresh strikes near Kharkiv.
Across the border, the mayor of Russia’s Belgorod said a Ukrainian missile attack damaged infrastructure and cut power, heat and water to parts of the city, though no casualties were reported.
Kyiv’s lead negotiator said talks would continue in the coming weeks, underscoring a familiar reality: diplomacy is inching forward, even as the war grinds on.
