Russia and Ukraine agreed to a large exchange of prisoners of war as two days of U.S.-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi ended without a major breakthrough on ending Moscow's nearly five-year full-scale invasion, NPR reported. Hopes had been low for a significant development in the first meeting in nine months between the delegations. The talks lasted just under two hours on Wednesday, after a four-hour session the day before.
"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," Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, said after the talks. Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation, and Rustem Umerov, who led Kyiv's contingent, confirmed the planned exchange, though Medinsky said the agreement was "in principle." Alexander Zorin, a deputy chief in the General Staff's information department who attended the talks, told Russian state television it would be one of the biggest such swaps after 1,000 soldiers were returned last year, and that it could take place in the next two or three weeks.
Kushner said he and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff would travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet President Vladimir Putin, then fly to Dublin to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Among the remaining hurdles, U.S. officials say, are postwar security guarantees, the fate of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, and what role European countries will play. European officials were excluded by Moscow from the three-way talks. Umerov said Kyiv's delegation was expected to meet later with representatives of European governments, the European Union, and NATO who were in Abu Dhabi but did not attend those sessions. Kushner said one goal of the Moscow meeting was to try to get Europeans added to the talks.
"Ukraine's priority is to end the war as soon as possible with a dignified peace," Zelenskyy said. "We believe that Europe must be represented at every stage of real diplomacy." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said European representatives could eventually join but that their current statements "don't indicate any desire on their part to contribute to movement along the path toward peace." Moscow complains that Europe is financing and supplying weapons to Ukraine. Medinsky said he felt the meeting helped the sides edge closer to peace, and Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov called the talks "substantive and quite useful." The verified result is more modest: a prisoner swap agreed in principle, and no settlement of the war.