KYIV, March 5 (Reuters) – Ukraine and Russia exchanged 200 prisoners of war each on Thursday in their latest swap, officials on both sides said, despite a deadlock in U.S.-backed negotiations to end the four-year conflict.
Kyiv and Moscow have carried out regular POW exchanges throughout the war, committing during recent talks in Geneva to a new round of such swaps even as negotiations remain stuck over the question of territory.
“Every time our people come home, it proves that Ukraine is working to bring everyone back. No one is forgotten,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on X.
“We involve mediators. I am grateful to everyone who helps Ukraine. I thank the United States for its support in making this exchange possible.”
Some of the POWs freed on Thursday were captured as far back as Moscow’s siege of Mariupol in early 2022, Zelenskiy added.
Tearful relatives greeted loved ones – many of them draped in Ukrainian flags – as they emerged from a bus that had arrived at an undisclosed location to chants of “Welcome!”
The two sides are expected to trade a further 300 POWs each in a second day of exchanges on Friday, officials said.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Yurii Kovalenko; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Gareth Jones)
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