Russia and Ukraine began their largest exchange of prisoners of war on Friday, with each side returning 390 soldiers and civilians, according to both governments. More swaps were expected on Saturday and Sunday, as the two countries have committed to exchange 1,000 prisoners each.
“We are bringing our people home. The first part of the agreement to exchange 1000 for 1000 has been implemented,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine wrote in a post on social media. He included pictures of Ukrainians who had been returned, most of them men with shaven heads and thin frames, their shoulders draped in Ukrainian flags.
Russia’s defense ministry said that 270 of its soldiers and 120 civilians had been turned over in Belarus, before being transported to Russia, and that the same figures applied to the Ukrainians it had returned. Ukraine did not immediately provide a breakdown of how many of its returning nationals were soldiers or civilians.
The exchange was agreed upon at negotiations in Istanbul last week, the first time the two sides have engaged in direct talks since the early months of the war.
On Friday, hundreds of families gathered at a site in northeastern Chernihiv region of Ukraine to wait for the arrival of the first group of freed prisoners. Many of the family members had wrapped themselves in blue and gold Ukrainian flags and were carrying pictures of their loved ones, hoping that they would be included in the exchange.
Before the buses carrying returnees arrived, an ambulance raced one of them to a hospital, where scores of doctors waited to provide medical care to the former captives.
Months of diplomacy, including the Istanbul talks and a phone call on Monday between President Trump, who has pushed for a cease-fire, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, have not led to any breakthroughs. But the exchange of prisoners has remained one of the few areas where the two sides have kept an open line of communication. There have been more than 60 exchanges over the past three years.
It is also one of the most deeply resonant issues inside Ukraine, stirring both anger and sorrow with each new report documenting Russia’s systemic mistreatment and torture of soldiers, including reports by United Nations investigators, nongovernmental agencies and independent journalists.
Andriy Kostin, the prosecutor general of Ukraine, has estimated that some 90 percent of Ukrainians in Russian captivity reported having been subjected to torture, rape, threats of sexual violence or other forms of ill treatment.
Ukraine has also faced accusations of extreme mistreatment of Russian soldiers, particularly during their apprehension, but the United Nations has said that cases are more isolated on the Ukrainian side, compared with the vast scale of the mistreatment on the Russian side.
Unlike Moscow, Kyiv is also sensitive to demands by the Western nations backing its military that Ukraine comply with international law on the treatment of prisoners. The Ukrainians allow visits to prisoner of war camps by both the United Nations and Red Cross; those organizations have largely been denied access in Russia and the Ukrainian territory it occupies.
Over the past three years, The New York Times has interviewed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war upon their return to Ukraine. One was Denys, whose arm was blown off by a mine shortly before he was taken prisoner in the fall of Mariupol in 2023. He was later released in one of the first exchanges.
The United Nations and Red Cross were on hand to monitor the surrender of Ukrainians in Mariupol. Denys, who asked that only his first name be used to protect the privacy of his family, said it was the last time he saw representatives of those groups.
He said he was searched, interrogated and crowded in with 800 prisoners in a bunkhouse with just 150 beds. He recalled being beaten on at least 15 occasions during his 34 days in captivity.
Civilians at the camp also offered witness accounts of how the soldiers were treated.
Vitaliy Sytnikov, a 35-year-old who was arrested while trying to evacuate other residents from Mariupol, described a disciplinary cell known as “the pit.”
“Almost every day we heard the beatings of prisoners of war there,” Mr. Sytnikov said in a telephone interview last month.
Paul Sonne contributed reporting from Berlin.
Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa.
Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.
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