Ukraine and Russia discuss prisoner swap deal during ‘constructive’ talks

ABU DHABI — After a nine-month break, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met to restart face-to-face talks on how to end the four-and-a-half-year war, with tentative signs of early progress. The two sides discussed an exchange of prisoners, but contrary to some reports, it has not yet been finalized, according to one official familiar with the matter, who was granted anonymity because the meeting was confidential. The talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday focused on what security guarantees Ukraine — and Russia — want to see after the war ends. On the second and final day of the meeting on Wednesday, negotiators are due to turn to the highly sensitive question of territory. Privately, U.S. officials who convened the meeting say both Russia and Ukraine have shown at least some readiness to be flexible on the issue of land. The meeting with Russia and the U.S. was “constructive and quite substantive,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on X after receiving a report from his negotiating team. “They had time to discuss the need and possible parameters for humanitarian steps. The release of prisoners is a priority.” Zelenskyy said the negotiating teams spoke “in detail” about what security guarantees would be required to stop Russia from attacking Ukraine again in the future. In a significant move toward easing Ukraine’s fears, the U.S. is asking the Russian side if they would consent to America providing Ukraine with NATO-like commitments to collective defense, or even for NATO to sign such an agreement itself. “Real tools are needed to block any recurrence of the war,” Zelenskyy said. According to Russian state media, the talks ended after 4.5 hours and were conducted in Russian. Alongside the Ukrainian and Russian negotiators, the United Arab Emirates foreign minister and NATO’s top commander in Europe were also at the table. Earlier in the day, European representatives held talks with the American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who convened the negotiations. The European side agreed with the Americans to review Europe’s wider security architecture as part of the peace process for Ukraine — a step toward meeting one of Russia’s central demands. “It looks like the talks in Abu Dhabi were very productive,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the G-7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Paris. “There’s a lot of work to be done in that regard. It’s not like something that’s on the verge of being solved in the next 24 hours or anything like that.”