'Big prisoner exchange' between Russia and Ukraine, says Trump

Donald Trump announced Friday a "big prisoner exchange" between Russia and Ukraine, congratulating these countries and wondering if it might herald "something big," possibly referring to negotiations between the belligerents.

An agreement on "a big prisoner exchange has just been completed between Russia and Ukraine. It will come into effect shortly. Congratulations to both parties on this negotiation. It could lead to something big ?? ?," wrote Trump on his Truth Social network, without providing further details.

Neither Moscow nor Kiev have immediately confirmed these claims. A senior official familiar with the matter told AFP that "the exchange itself has not yet taken place" and that "the process is ongoing." This type of exchange, very sensitive between two countries at war, is generally kept secret until it is completed, which can take hours.

An agreement on an exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side had been reached during a negotiating session in Istanbul on May 16, where Russians and Ukrainians did not agree on a truce. These were the first direct talks between them since 2022. After more than three years of fighting, thousands of prisoners of war are held in both countries, although their exact number is not known.

"We have confirmation that nearly 10,000 people are in Russian captivity," said in April the Ukrainian commissioner for missing persons Artour Dobroserdov.

Russia gives very little information on the fate of Ukrainian captives and each exchange reserves its share of surprises, said a senior Ukrainian official to AFP under the cover of anonymity. "In almost every exchange there are people no one knew about," he said. "Sometimes they return people who were on the lists of missing persons or who were considered dead."

The issue of prisoners of war is one of the few areas on which Kiev and Moscow episodically manage to agree on since the beginning of the invasion, and limited exchanges occur regularly. It also represents a particularly painful subject in these countries, with thousands of families waiting anxiously for news of their missing relatives.

New Ukrainian-Russian negotiations?

Kiev and Moscow accuse each other of violating the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of prisoners of war. Russia regularly organizes trials to judge Ukrainian prisoners of war, which goes against international law.

Cases of torture are regularly reported, and several captives - military or civilian - have died in detention. The NGO Amnesty International denounced the "systematic torture and deprivation of medical care" of Ukrainian prisoners in Russia in a report published in March.

Several former Ukrainian prisoners of war reported to AFP that they had been tortured in captivity.

Russia recently returned the body of Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Rochtchina, who died in captivity. According to a journalistic investigation, she had been tortured and some of her organs were missing from her corpse.

Trump had hammered during his electoral campaign that he would quickly end the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in 2022. He has been trying for several weeks to achieve a cease-fire between the warring parties, while threatening to disengage from the process if things did not progress.

Since the negotiations in Istanbul, the possibility of a second meeting has been the subject of intense speculation, although its holding has not been formally confirmed. Moscow has said that a possible continuation of talks with Kiev could only happen after the prisoner exchange, planned in a format of 1,000 Russians for 1,000 Ukrainians.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kiev "is exploring all possibilities" regarding the location for a new bilateral meeting with the Russians, including "Turkey, the Vatican, Switzerland." The possibility that the next negotiations will take place at the Vatican has been mentioned by Pope Leo XIV, the United States, and Italy. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared to close the door by saying Friday that it would not be "very elegant for Orthodox countries to discuss in Catholic land issues related to eliminating the root causes" of the conflict in Ukraine.