Abu Dhabi talks end with Russia-Ukraine deal on prisoner swap

Detailed summary

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed to a major prisoner exchange at two days of US-mediated peace talks in Abu Dhabi that ended on Wednesday without a breakthrough on the central issues dividing the two sides.

ABU DHABI — Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed to a major prisoner exchange at two days of US-mediated peace talks in Abu Dhabi that ended on Wednesday without a breakthrough on the central issues dividing the two sides.

At ​their first negotiations in nine months, the two countries agreed in principle to exchange prisoners of war and to determine the numbers on Thursday.

US envoy Jared Kushner said the new ‌swap would be the "biggest humanitarian release of prisoners" in the 4-1/2-year-old war, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said its scope would be "significant."

Ukraine's chief negotiator Rustem Umerov and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Medinsky also confirmed the planned exchange, although neither side provided further details on its timing or scale.

The agreement marks the most concrete — and so far the only — outcome of the first direct negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow in nine months, following an earlier round in Geneva in February this year that failed to produce a breakthrough.

Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters in Dublin on Wednesday that Ukraine was focused on achieving progress on an accord this year.

"A lot will depend today on the format of the dialogue of the American and Russian sides tomorrow... I believe ​it is also very important for the Americans...to achieve a result this year, in my view, given what we are seeing happening," he said.

Answering a Euronews question during the post-talks briefing as to when it is time for a face-to-face meeting between Zelensky and Putin, Kushner said that "we have a little bit more work we need to do to get there and we are pushing a boulder uphill."

"Just to be transparent, I think what the Russians have said is that they would like to see more progress made before that happens," as "clearly there is not great trust or love between the leaders," the US envoy told Euronews, but that "it will be very important for the leaders to come together to finalize because it is really only the leaders that…

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