Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a large exchange of prisoners of war after two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, mediated by the United States. The deal was the main concrete outcome of the negotiations, which ended on Wednesday, 11 November, without a breakthrough on the wider war.
Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and one of the mediators, called it the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners so far. “One of the positives is we agreed that we’re going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we’re going to finalize the numbers tomorrow,” he said after the talks ended.
Officials said the exchange could involve 1,000 prisoners from each side, or more, in the near future. The heads of both delegations — Vladimir Medinsky for Russia and Rustem Umerov for Ukraine — confirmed the planned exchange.
01. Kushner and Witkoff to meet Putin on Thursday
The diplomacy will now move to Moscow. Kushner announced that he and US envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Russia on Thursday to meet President Vladimir Putin.
“Steve and I are going to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with (Russian) President Putin to go over what was discussed today and to try to make more progress on some of the issues that we discussed because we see some openings and some opportunities there,” Kushner said at a news conference in Abu Dhabi.
After Moscow, the two envoys will fly to Dublin to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to brief him on the discussions and develop the ideas raised in Abu Dhabi.
02. No breakthrough, but talks continue
Wednesday’s session lasted about two hours, after a first day of talks on Tuesday that ran for around four hours. A round of talks with representatives of European countries followed.
Despite the prisoner-exchange agreement, there was no clear breakthrough on the core issues of the war. Medinsky gave little indication that Moscow’s demands had changed. Witkoff said the sides had discussed building on existing European security institutions and agreements after the war, and Kushner said Washington would try to bring European countries into the format — a multilateral format Moscow has so far resisted.
The Abu Dhabi talks were the third round of negotiations hosted in the Emirati capital this year, and the first direct Russia-Ukraine talks since February. The US delegation also included General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
Zelenskyy had called the first day of talks “constructive”. The prisoner exchange still needs its final numbers agreed, which Kushner said would happen on Thursday.
