As Ukraine prepares for a major peace summit in June, President Volodymyr Zelensky sees an opportunity to free all Ukrainian prisoners from Russia before the end of the war.
After the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has seized thousands of Ukrainians, from soldiers to children, adding them to the hundreds of Ukrainian warfighters it was holding from earlier.
Ukrainian authorities doesn't disclose how many Russian prisoners of war (POWs) are currently in custody in Ukraine, nor how many POW detention centers there are in the country.
"Some are skeptical, saying that (the all-for-all prisoner swap can take place) only after the end of the war, since this is one of the conditions for the end of the war,” Zelensky said on May 3. “I believe that we have the opportunity to try to do this earlier.”
“All reasonable countries support this route,” he added.
The possibility of an all-for-all prisoner swap will be one of the subjects at Ukraine’s upcoming global peace summit in Switzerland. Other subjects will include returning kidnapped Ukrainian children, energy and nuclear security, plus free navigation of the Black and Azov seas.
Ukraine hopes that this will lead to further discussions and diplomatic pressure on Russia to proceed with the swap.
But as always, Russia has been doing everything it can to obstruct such an exchange. In the meantime, it’s subjecting the Ukrainians to trumped-up charges, sham trials, and torture, according to Ukrainian officials and international organizations.
Ukraine has been trying to return its people from Russia since long before the full-scale war. A prisoner exchange was one of the points of the Minsk II format, which was introduced in 2015, failing to make peace or curb Moscow’s aggression.
However, exchange talks are ongoing to this day, military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said in April.
Kyiv is trying to return all its captured combatants and noncombatants. This includes military musicians, medics and chaplains, as well as civilians forcibly sent to Russia’s farthest reaches, Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson of Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, told the Kyiv Independent.
Several countries have mediated prisoner swaps between Ukraine and Russia, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Turkey is also negotiating with Moscow to release prisoners. During a March visit to Istanbul, Zelensky passed a list of Ukrainian citizens, including Crimean Tatars, captured by Russia to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Qatar, the only country that publicly assists in the return of deported Ukrainian children, may also start negotiations with Moscow on the release of Ukrainians, Ombudsman chief Dmytro Lubinets said in late April.
A total of 160 national delegations will be reportedly invited to the summit in Switzerland, while several European countries and Cape Verde have already confirmed their participation.
Russia is not invited. Participants of the summit will create a common negotiating position and submit it to Moscow, Zelensky’s spokesperson Sergii Nykyforov said.
In Russia’s clutches
It’s not public how many Ukrainian troops and civilians are in Russian captivity. In January, Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of POWs reported there were more than 8,000.
However, those are just the ones whose POW status can be confirmed. Russia doesn’t provide Kyiv with any prisoner lists, and people who were captured but left no proof are listed as missing, according to Yatsenko. Almost 37,000 people were missing as of April — warriors and civilians, including children.
Ukrainian prisoners held in the occupied territories of Ukraine or in Russia are systematically tortured, which has been repeatedly confirmed by U.N. reports. At least 32 Ukrainian POWs have been executed during this winter, a report by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said.
“Russia does not comply with the 3rd Geneva Convention on prisoners of war. This includes the lack of sufficient nutrition, medical aid, communication with relatives, torture, and humiliation,” Yatsenko said.
Read also: ‘I want to go home’: Inside a Russian prisoner of war camp in Ukraine
“Everything that can be used to break a person is in Russian torture chambers.”
Since the beginning of the full-scale war, Kyiv and Moscow have conducted 51 exchanges of POWs. A total of 3,135 people, including 147 civilians, were brought back to Ukraine, according to the coordination headquarters.
The largest prisoner exchange brought home 230 Ukrainians in early January. Two more exchanges followed shortly, the last of which took place on Feb. 8.
Despite the fact that there are more Ukrainians in Russian captivity than Russian troops captured in Ukraine, parity is not necessary for the all-for-all exchange, Yatsenko said.
"Our exchange fund is big for this kind of swap. We see that the Russian side is not interested in returning its (soldiers). It makes no sense for us to keep Russian POWs. Our state budget funds are spent on this. We would like to exchange them for Ukrainians immediately," he told the Kyiv Independent.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that Moscow obstructs prisoner exchanges and uses the issue of POWs to undermine the social and political situation in Ukraine.
"Russia is trying to keep the families of POWs in limbo, a vulnerable state, when they are easily manipulated or even blackmailed," Yatsenko said.
"Therefore, the interest of the Russians is to prevent exchanges, even though Russian families do not see their (soldiers). The main obstacle is that Russia treats prisoners as a tool that can be used to influence families, friends, and acquaintances in Ukraine."
