Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says each side exchanged 390 detainees, with more to come over several days.
Russia and Ukraine say that they have swapped hundreds of prisoners in the first phase of a major exchange that was agreed at recent direct talks in Turkiye.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that the release of 390 people by each side was the first stage of a “1,000-for-1,000” swap.
“We are bringing our people home,” he said in a social media post.
“Today – 390 people. On Saturday and Sunday, we expect the exchange to continue. Thank you to everyone who is helping and working 24/7 to bring Ukrainian men and women back home. It is very important to return everyone who remains in captivity. We are verifying every surname, every detail about each person,” he added.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said each side had released 270 military personnel and 120 civilian detainees, with further exchanges planned “in coming days”.
In Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, crowds of cheering relatives greeted buses carrying the released Ukrainians as they arrived at a medical facility.
“I didn’t believe until this moment that it could happen,” said 38-year-old Oleksandr Tarasov, from Mykolaiv, who was captured a year and nine months ago on the Kherson front after its recapture by Ukraine in 2022. “I’m just happy I made it back … I just want to speak to my loved ones,” he said.
Others continue to search for information about loved ones who remain missing. Some of the released men paused to look at pictures of missing loved ones held by members of the crowd, with one serviceman saying that he had shared a cell with one of the individuals featured in a picture.
“It’s extremely hard to go to sleep every night not knowing what happened to him,” said 49-year-old Svitlana Kuskova, holding a sign with a photo of her husband, Oleksandr Kuskov, who has been missing for the past year.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said that released Russian detainees, who include civilians captured during a Ukrainian incursion into the region of Kursk, were taken to Belarus for medical treatment.
United States President Donald Trump, who has pushed each side to hold talks to end the war, welcomed the exchange in a social media post, adding it could “lead to something big”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later said that Russia will have a draft of conditions necessary for an agreement to end the war by the time the exchanges are completed.
But uncertainty remains over the path towards a negotiated settlement to end the war, or even a pause in the fighting, more than three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Istanbul last week were the first direct talks the two sides have held since the early weeks of the war, but lasted for only two hours and did not produce an agreement on a cessation of hostilities.
Ukraine has stated it would accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire, while Russia has said it will not do so unless certain conditions are met.
