Ukraine and Russia Exchange Prisoners of War in Latest Swap

 On June 13, 2025, Ukraine and Russia conducted a prisoner of war exchange, releasing 95 Ukrainian soldiers and 95 Russian servicemen in a neutral zone near Belarus’s border, marked by barbed wire and snow-dusted pines.

The swap, facilitated by the United Arab Emirates, unfolded on a frostbitten morning, with prisoners crossing a checkpoint in Vitebsk region, their breath visible in the subzero air. Ukrainian soldiers, some limping from injuries sustained in Donetsk’s trenches, wore tattered camouflage, while Russians, captured in Kursk’s forests, clutched blankets stamped with Red Cross insignias.

The exchange, the latest since the conflict’s onset in February 2022, began with buses departing Kyiv’s military bases and Moscow’s detention centers, converging at the border under drone surveillance. Ukrainian troops, including 40 from the Azov Brigade captured in Mariupol’s 2022 siege, reunited with families in Sumy, their embraces lit by camera flashes. Russian conscripts, some as young as 19, boarded trains to Smolensk, their faces gaunt after months in Lviv’s camps. Both sides verified identities using dog tags and passports, a process overseen by UAE mediators in bulletproof vests. The swap, occurring amid stalled ceasefire talks in Istanbul, followed a November 2024 exchange of 103 prisoners, bringing the total exchanged to over 3,000, as shelling continued in Kharkiv’s outskirts.