By Tom Balmforth
CHERNIHIV REGION, Ukraine (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners on Friday and said they would free more in the coming days, in what is expected to be the biggest prisoner swap of the war so far.
The agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners each was the only concrete step towards peace to emerge last week from the first direct talks between the warring sides in more than three years, when they failed to agree a ceasefire.
Both sides said they had each released 270 soldiers and 120 civilians so far, with more due to be released on Saturday and Sunday.
The released Ukrainians arrived at a hospital in the northern Chernihiv region in buses and filed out, pale, most of them with shaven heads and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
“I have no words to describe (my feelings). I was in captivity for 22 months,” said Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Nehir. He embraced his wife who said she had not been informed of his release and came from their home in Sumy region out of hope.
“You can’t make it out if you don’t believe. You have to believe every day,” Nehir said.
Another soldier, Oleksandr Tarasov, 38, from Mykolaiv, said he had been captured a year and nine months ago on the Kherson front after its recapture by Ukraine in 2022.
“I didn’t believe until this moment that it could happen,” he said of his release.
The freed Russians arrived in Belarus, which neighbours Ukraine, where they were receiving psychological and medical assistance, the Russian Defence Ministry said.
They include civilians captured inside Russia’s Kursk region during a Ukrainian incursion.
Video released by the ministry showed civilians on a bus, some smiling and others crying. “This is our gift, happiness,” one woman said.
Another video showed released soldiers wearing military fatigues holding up a Russian and a Soviet flag and shouting “Hurrah!”
“Everything will be all right! Glory to Russia!” said one soldier.
TRUMP HAILS RELEASE
Referring to the prisoner swap earlier on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump, who had pressed the sides to meet last week, wrote on Truth Social: “Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???”
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been wounded or killed in Europe’s deadliest war since World War Two, although neither side publishes accurate casualty figures. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have also died as Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine on Friday reiterated that it is ready for a 30-day ceasefire immediately.
Russia, which launched the war by invading its neighbour in 2022 and now occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, says it will not pause its assaults until conditions are met first. A member of the Ukrainian delegation called those conditions “non-starters”.
Trump, who has shifted U.S. policy from supporting Kyiv towards accepting some of Moscow’s account of the war, had said he could tighten sanctions on Russia if it blocked peace. But after speaking to Putin on Monday he decided to take no action for now.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told reporters at the hospital that the swap was “the first stage” and that Kyiv still hoped to secure a ceasefire.
“We hope that the U.S. will support Ukraine in achieving the ceasefire,” he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow would hand Kyiv a draft document outlining its conditions for a long-term peace agreement once the prisoner exchange is completed.
STILL HOPING
Near the hospital in the Chernihiv region, dozens of people, mostly women, stood in line along a street holding up photographs of men they hoped would be included in the swap.
Many said they had relatives who were missing in action and that they had come to find out any news they could from those who had just been released.
“It’s very difficult,” said Oksana Astapenko, carrying her daughter Anhelina on her shoulders and tearing up as she spoke.
“We’re still hoping. We don’t know if he’s in captivity or not… he’s just missing. We’re hoping for positive news that he’s there.”
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Sergiy Karazy and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan; Writing by Peter Graff and Conor Humphries; Editing by Alex Richardson, Timothy Heritage, Gareth Jones and Cynthia Osterman)
