# Russia and Ukraine exchange hundreds of prisoners in UAE-brokered swap
Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war on December 30, 2024 in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates, bringing home some of the longest-held captives of the war and underlining how prisoner exchanges remain one of the few functioning channels between the two sides.
The supplied BBC report says Russia released 150 Ukrainian soldiers, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 189 Ukrainians had returned home. The discrepancy reflects the different ways each side described the swap, but both accounts agree that the exchange was large and involved a substantial number of people on each side.
Zelensky said those freed included defenders of Azovstal and Mariupol, along with people captured around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and Snake Island. The BBC also reported emotional reunions in northern Ukraine, where families met returning prisoners. Several of the released men had been held since 2022, meaning they had spent more than two and a half years in captivity.
The exchange is notable not only for its scale but also for the composition of the Ukrainian returnees. The BBC said the group included soldiers, border guards, National Guardsmen and Navy servicemen. Ukrainian officials told the outlet that some came back with serious illnesses and injuries, showing the long-term toll of captivity. The Russian defence ministry said its own released troops were in Belarus receiving medical assistance and the chance to contact families.
The swap also highlights the symbolic weight of Mariupol in the wider war. Several of those returned had been captured while defending the city in 2022, and the Azovstal steel plant remains one of the defining battle sites of the conflict. Denys Prokopenko, commander of Ukraine’s 12th Special Forces Azov Brigade, said 11 of his brigade’s men were among those released.
The exchange was the 59th since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, according to the BBC, and one of the biggest to date. That detail matters because it shows how prisoner swaps have become a repeated if imperfect humanitarian mechanism even as the broader war continues without a settlement.
The deal also came with a strong public-relations element on both sides. Russian human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova posted video of released Russian troops, while Zelensky shared photographs of men holding Ukrainian flags. But beyond the messaging, the facts confirm that both countries were willing to trade a significant number of prisoners as the year ended, and that many of the Ukrainians involved had spent years in Russian hands.
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