Ukraine, Russia begin talks on swap of Kursk prisoners

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Ukraine said it had begun talks with Russia on a prisoner swap captured by Kyiv as it continued its stunning counter-incursion into the Kursk region.

The negotiations come after more than a week of heavy fighting in western Russia and what Ukraine’s internal security service has described as “the largest ever simultaneous capture of the enemy.”

Dmitry Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, told local media on Wednesday evening that his Russian counterpart had contacted him to open discussions on a prisoner-of-war exchange.

Ukraine’s military intelligence, which is leading the negotiations over the prisoners of war, confirmed to the Financial Times that it was working on a swap.

Kiev has not revealed the exact number of Russian prisoners its forces have captured in the Kursk operation, but government officials and soldiers on the border told the Financial Times the figure runs into the “hundreds.”

The talks come 10 days after Ukraine launched a bold counteroffensive into Russian territory. Ukraine’s military chief of staff, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said on Thursday that Ukraine controlled 1,150 square kilometers (470 square miles) in the Kursk region, up from 1,000 square kilometers.

Syrsky said his forces had taken full control of the town of Sudzha, where a Ukrainian military office is being set up. The town, which had a pre-war population of 5,000, is home to a natural gas metering station on one of the last pipelines carrying Russian fuel to central Europe.

Syrsky added that Ukrainian forces are advancing between 500 meters and 1.5 kilometers each day in different directions, which is about half the distance reported on Tuesday.

The Financial Times could not independently verify his claims, but both figures suggest that Ukraine’s offensive in Kursk is slowing. Syrsky said its forces were continuing their attempts to seize more territory.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday its forces had repelled Ukrainian forces in seven settlements in Kursk, between 30 and 90 kilometers (19 and 56 miles) from the border.

The capture of Russian prisoners is likely to bolster calls for Kyiv to return thousands of its soldiers and civilians captured during Russia’s two-and-a-half-year invasion and occupation of large swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Several young recruits were captured by Ukrainian forces in the early stages of the covert incursion into Kyiv – the first such operation on Russian territory since World War II.

While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not disclosed the operation’s goals, he has repeatedly praised his soldiers for taking Russian prisoners on the battlefield and “replenishing” what he called an “exchange fund” for prisoner swaps.

Before the incursion, each side was already holding hundreds of prisoners of war. President Vladimir Putin said in June that Russia was holding about 6,500 Ukrainian troops. He also said Ukraine was holding more than 1,300 Russian troops, a figure confirmed by a person familiar with the situation.

Russian officials had previously indicated that Moscow might move to suspend the prisoner swap, but Lubinets said his talks with his Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova gave him hope that the warring sides could move forward with the talks soon.

There was a proactive conversation. [with our] “Both sides are consulting with his Russian counterpart on this issue,” Lavrov said, adding that Moscow and Kiev are “exchanging information” about each other’s prisoners.

“We have priority categories and we are ready to exchange them. First, these are the seriously wounded. Second, Ukrainian women, and third, everyone who remains in captivity,” he said.

Lubinets said he had informed the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross that “the rights of Russian prisoners of war are protected and at any time Ukraine is ready to continue exchanges on the basis of the Geneva Convention.”

A Ukrainian security service official said on Thursday that his special forces alone had captured 102 Russian soldiers from the 488th Motorized Rifle Regiment and the Chechen Akhmat unit in the Kursk region.

“This is the largest enemy capture ever carried out at one time,” he said.

The official provided several videos and photos of Russian soldiers in uniform with their eyes and hands covered with tape. In one clip, dozens of soldiers are seen lying face down in a field as Ukrainian forces watch them.

The photos showed 12 prisoners being transported in a covered vehicle, and dozens more sitting inside a large building.

Zelensky and Lubinets said on Wednesday that Ukrainian authorities would seek to set up army command offices in Kursk to provide humanitarian aid to the Russian population.

Several Kursk residents who fled under constant shelling and drone attacks to the region’s capital of the same name told the Financial Times that there was no organised evacuation by the authorities in the early days of the incursion.

They added that many people were forced to give up their property, documents and sometimes even their relatives and pets.

Mapping by Ian Boot