CHERNIHIV REGION, Ukraine –
Russia and Ukraine exchanged prisoners of war under the age of 25 on Monday in emotional homecoming scenes, the first step in a series of planned prisoner swaps that could become the biggest of the war so far.
The exchange was the result of direct talks between the two sides in Istanbul on June 2 that resulted in an agreement to exchange at least 1,200 POWs on each side and to repatriate thousands of bodies of those killed in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The return of POWs and the repatriation of the bodies of the dead is one of the few things the two sides have managed to agree on as broader negotiations have failed to get close to ending the war, now in its fourth year.
