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Ukraine and Russia have officially conducted another prisoner-of-war exchange.
Getting into it: The prisoner swap, which was conducted in coordination between Ukraine and Russia on Saturday, marks the fourth such exchange in a week under agreements reached during recent talks in Istanbul. While neither side disclosed the exact number of prisoners exchanged, both confirmed that the focus was on severely wounded, seriously ill, and younger captives, many of whom were under the age of 25.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated, “We continue to take our people out of Russian captivity,” adding that many of the returned servicemen had been held since 2022 and included soldiers from the Armed Forces, National Guard, State Border Guard Service, and the State Special Transport Service. According to Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, those freed had served in high-intensity conflict zones including Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, and Kursk.
The agreement also included the repatriation of fallen soldiers. On Saturday, Russia handed over the bodies of 1,200 deceased Ukrainian service members, following two similar transfers earlier in the week—1,212 bodies on June 11 and 1,200 on June 13—bringing the confirmed total to 3,612 bodies returned to Ukraine in the span of four days.
Russia, however, claims the exchanges have not been reciprocal. “Not a single one [of our fallen soldiers] was handed over to us,” a Russian government source told the state-run TASS news agency. Russian presidential aide and lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky accused Ukraine of “suddenly postponing the handover of remains and prisoner exchanges on June 7” without offering a public explanation. Russia’s Ministry of Defense added that the returned Russian POWs were receiving psychological and medical care in Belarus before being transferred to military hospitals in Russia.
This all comes as both sides continue to engage in heavy fighting across multiple frontlines, with Russia intensifying its offensive operations in northeastern Ukraine, particularly in the Sumy region, where it aims to establish a so-called “buffer zone.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that Russian advances in the area had been halted and that Kyiv’s forces had managed to retake at least one village. On the Russian side, authorities in the Belgorod region said their air defenses intercepted 260 Ukrainian drones and multiple Western-supplied munitions over the past 24 hours.
