Ukraine is working to resume prisoner exchanges with Russia that might bring home 1,200 Ukrainian prisoners, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday, a day after his national security chief announced progress in negotiations.
“We’re … counting on the resumption of POW exchanges,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
“Many meetings, negotiations and calls are currently happening to make sure this.”
Rustem Umerov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Saturday he held consultations mediated by Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on resuming exchanges. He said the parties agreed to activate prisoner exchange agreements brokered in Istanbul to release 1,200 Ukrainians. Moscow didn’t immediately comment.
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The Istanbul agreements check with prisoner-exchange protocols established with Turkish mediation in 2022 that set rules for giant, coordinated swaps. Since then, Russia and Ukraine have traded 1000’s of prisoners, though exchanges have been sporadic.
Umerov said technical consultations can be held soon to finalize procedural and organizational details, expressing hope that returning Ukrainians could “rejoice the Latest Yr and Christmas holidays at home — on the family table and next to their relatives.”
In other developments, energy infrastructure was damaged by Russian drone strikes overnight into Sunday in Ukraine’s Odesa region, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. A solar energy plant was among the many damaged sites.
Ukraine is desperately attempting to fend off relentless Russian aerial attacks which have brought rolling blackouts across Ukraine getting ready to winter.
Combined missile and drone strikes on the facility grid have coincided with Ukraine’s efforts to carry back a Russian battlefield push aimed toward capturing the eastern stronghold of Pokrovsk.
Russia fired a complete of 176 drones and one missile overnight, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday, adding that Ukrainian forces shot down or neutralized 139 drones. On the front line, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces had taken two settlements in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Russia’s greater and better-equipped army has scaled up its attacks, placing the short-handed Ukrainian military under severe strain. Ukrainian officials said in September that the front line has grown in length to just about 1,250 kilometers.
Russia has paid a high price in casualties and armor for its war of attrition, nevertheless, and Ukraine has held it to incremental battlefield gains.
Ukrainian forces struck a serious oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, together with a warehouse storing drones for the elite Rubicon drone unit within the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region, Ukraine’s general staff said Sunday. Russian officials didn’t immediately confirm the attacks.