Russia and Ukraine are expected to each swap 1,000 prisoners of war as part of deal reached at recent talks in Istanbul.
Russia has received a list of names of prisoners of war (POWs) that Ukraine wants freed as part of an expected exchange between the two countries, a Kremlin spokesperson told the Russian news agency Interfax.
Dmitry Peskov told Interfax on Thursday that the list had been received after Moscow gave Kyiv its own list of prisoners it wants released.
The exchange – which will see each side free 1,000 POWs in what would be the largest swap of the war – was agreed to during talks last week in the Turkish capital, Istanbul.
Those discussions marked the first direct peace negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations since 2022, the year the war began.
In advance of the meeting, Ukraine had called for a 30-day ceasefire, but Moscow rejected the proposal, agreeing only to the prisoner swap.
Ukrainian officials have since accused Russia of deliberately delaying peace talks while consolidating territorial gains on the battlefield.
The major prisoner swap is a “quite laborious process” that “requires some time”, said Peskov, adding that “the work is continuing at a quick pace.”
“Everybody is interested in doing it quickly,” the Kremlin spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that the deal “to release 1,000 of our people from Russian captivity was perhaps the only tangible result of the meeting in Turkiye”.
“We are working to ensure that this result is achieved,” he said in a post on X.
Zelenskyy added that Defence Minister Rustem Umerov is overseeing the exchange process, supported by several Ukrainian government ministries, intelligence agencies and the president’s own office.
“The return of all our people from Russian captivity is one of Ukraine’s key priorities,” Zelenskyy said. “I am grateful to everyone who is contributing to this effort.”
As Ukraine, the European Union, and the United States press Moscow to return to negotiations, Peskov dismissed reports about future peace talks taking place at the Vatican, saying, “There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings.”
US President Donald Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Monday and urged an end to the “bloodbath”.
Putin thanked Trump for supporting the resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, and said his government “will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace accord”.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its air defences shot down 105 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 35 over the Moscow region.
The ministry said it downed 485 Ukrainian drones over several regions and the Black Sea between late Tuesday and early Thursday.
In southern Ukraine, Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin also said on Thursday that one person was killed in a Russian artillery attack on the region.
He said 35 areas in the Kherson region, including the city of Kherson, came under artillery shelling and air attacks over the past day, wounding 11 people.
Zelenskyy said the “most intense situation” remains in the Donetsk region, however, while Ukrainian forces continue “active operations in the Kursk and Belgorod regions” inside Russia.
