Russia and Ukraine carried out an exchange of prisoners of war yesterday involving PoWs under the age of 25 and others who had been severely wounded, the start of what could become the biggest swap of the war so far.
The exchange, announced by both sides, was the result of direct talks in Istanbul on June 2 that resulted in an agreement to conduct an exchange of at least 1,200 PoWs on each side and to repatriate thousands of bodies of those killed in the war.
The return of PoWs and the repatriation of the bodies is one of the few things the two sides have been able to agree on, even as their broader negotiations have failed to get close to ending the war, now in its fourth year.
Neither side said how many prisoners had been swapped yesterday.
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