Russia and Ukraine have agreed to the largest prisoner exchange of their nearly five-year war, officials said on Wednesday, after two days of U.S.-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi produced the first tangible result from the first three-way negotiations in nine months. The exact number of prisoners to be freed has not yet been fixed, but both sides said the swap would be bigger than any exchange since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
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File photo: Freed Ukrainian prisoners of war, draped in Ukraine's blue-and-yellow flag, sit aboard a bus after an earlier exchange. (AP Photo)
The agreement was the only concrete outcome of the talks in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where delegations from Moscow and Kyiv met face to face for the first time since February. The United States acted as mediator, with President Donald Trump's envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff leading the American side. The two sides announced they had agreed in principle to the exchange and to keep talking — but they remained far apart on the core issues of territory and security guarantees, leaving little prospect of an immediate end to the fighting.
"One of the positives is we agreed that we're going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we're going to finalize the numbers tomorrow," Kushner, the president's son-in-law, told reporters after the talks ended. He described the negotiations as "very substantive" and "pretty tough."
Both chief negotiators confirmed the deal. Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation, said the two sides had agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap and had reached mutual understanding on some issues. Rustem Umerov, who led Ukraine's delegation, also confirmed the planned exchange. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was briefed after the talks, confirmed what he described as an important humanitarian arrangement for a new exchange.
The Deal Announced in Abu Dhabi
The talks in Abu Dhabi were the first trilateral meeting of American, Russian and Ukrainian officials since February, ending a nine-month gap in direct three-way diplomacy. The two days of negotiations, which ran from Tuesday into Wednesday, were held behind closed doors.
The discussions covered more than the prisoner swap. The delegations also talked about the return of Ukrainian civilians held in captivity and children taken from the country, as well as post-war security arrangements and mechanisms to monitor a potential ceasefire. Washington has reportedly floated security guarantees for Ukraine modeled on NATO's Article 5, the alliance's collective-defense clause, though Russia is said to be seeking additional territorial concessions in exchange.
The agenda was also broadened to include Europe's security architecture. European officials were not at the table for this round, and whether they will join future sessions is unclear.
The prisoner agreement was the one point on which the two sides could agree. Russia's state-run news agency TASS reported that the exchange should take place within two to three weeks. The numbers are expected to be finalized on Thursday, when Kushner and Witkoff travel to Moscow.
What the Numbers Could Look Like
Neither side has yet announced a final figure, but the early indications point to a swap on a scale the war has not yet seen. Russian officials said the exchange would exceed 1,000 people, and Zelenskyy said the two sides had discussed exchanging 1,000 prisoners each — or possibly as many as 1,500 each — according to Ukrainian media reports.
An exchange of 1,000 or more on each side would match or pass the largest single swap of the war so far: the 1,000-for-1,000 exchange agreed at direct talks in Istanbul in May 2025. That swap, the 65th of the war, was carried out over three days, starting with 390 prisoners released by each side on the first day — 270 military personnel and 120 civilians.
Prisoner exchanges have been the one track on which Moscow and Kyiv have kept delivering, even while the political talks have stalled. The two sides have swapped prisoners throughout the war, including after peace talks failed to produce results. The most recent exchange took place on October 23, when each side returned 270 people, including 261 Ukrainian servicemen and nine civilians, according to Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has brought home more than 7,000 of its people through exchanges, according to Ukrainian officials. As of early 2026, Ukrainian authorities said Russia was still holding about 7,000 Ukrainian prisoners. The United Arab Emirates has played a central mediating role in the exchanges, helping to arrange the return of more than 4,600 prisoners across 17 operations as of August 2025.
No Breakthrough on Ending the War
For all the progress on prisoners, the Abu Dhabi talks produced no movement toward ending the war itself. Both sides acknowledged that they remained apart on the central questions — territory, security guarantees and a ceasefire — and analysts who followed the talks said there was no sign of a wider settlement.
"Predictably, the talks ended without a breakthrough" on a broader settlement, analysts said, with no apparent progress on a ceasefire, which remains a priority for the Ukrainian negotiators. Kushner himself said territory would be the most difficult issue to resolve, underscoring how far apart the two sides remain.
The fighting, meanwhile, did not pause for the diplomacy. While the delegations were meeting in Abu Dhabi, Ukraine and Russia exchanged heavy fire overnight, with a Russian strike in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and the eastern city of Kharkiv wounding seven civilians, according to reports.
The February round of talks, the last time the three sides met before Abu Dhabi, also ended in stalemate on territory — though it did produce a deal to exchange 314 prisoners.
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The Abu Dhabi skyline. The United Arab Emirates capital hosted two days of U.S.-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine. (Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi)
What This Means
The Abu Dhabi agreement matters most for the families waiting for news of captured soldiers. For thousands of Ukrainian and Russian families, a prisoner exchange is the only realistic way their relatives come home, and the prospect of the largest release of the war — potentially 1,000 or more people on each side — would be the most significant humanitarian development of the conflict in more than a year.
It also matters as a test of American mediation. The Trump administration has made ending the war a central foreign policy goal, and the Abu Dhabi round was the first time its envoys had brought the two sides together in nine months. Getting Moscow and Kyiv to agree on anything — even a humanitarian measure — keeps a diplomatic channel open that had gone quiet. But the absence of any progress on territory or a ceasefire is a reminder of how limited that channel remains.
For Ukraine, the talks also carried a symbolic weight. Kyiv has long sought security guarantees from Washington as the price of any settlement, and the reported American proposal modeled on NATO's Article 5 suggests the issue is now squarely on the negotiating table. Whether Russia would ever accept such an arrangement — and what territory it would demand in return — remains the central unanswered question.
The agreement also underlines the UAE's role in the war's diplomacy. Abu Dhabi has hosted and brokered exchanges throughout the conflict, and this week's talks reinforced its position as a venue where both sides will sit down.
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File photo: Freed Ukrainian prisoners of war wrapped in Ukrainian flags gather beside a bus after returning home in an earlier exchange.
What Happens Next
The diplomacy now moves quickly to two more capitals. Kushner and Witkoff are scheduled to travel to Moscow on Thursday, November 12, to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, before flying to Dublin to meet Zelenskyy. The envoys are expected to use those meetings to finalize the prisoner numbers and push for a further round of talks.
The exchange itself is expected within two to three weeks, once the lists of names are exchanged and the logistics are arranged — a process that has taken similar amounts of time in previous swaps. Ukrainian officials have said the numbers should be announced on Thursday.
Whether the prisoner deal leads to anything more will depend on the Moscow and Dublin meetings. The two sides have agreed to continue talking, and American officials have said they want Europe brought into the next round. But with territory still unresolved and the fighting continuing, the path to a wider peace agreement remains uncertain. For now, the families of prisoners on both sides have something they have not had in months: a date to look forward to.
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