Zelenskyy: Huge POW swap readies, Ukraine handed over lists to Russia
Volodymyr Zelenskyy (photo: facebook.com/zelenskyy.official)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner swap is being prepared, and that the Russian side has already received the lists.
Zelenskyy said that the United States had taken on commitments to ensure the agreement's implementation. Contacts with Washington are currently ongoing.
"We are contacting the American side regarding guarantees for the implementation of the agreements that were recently reached and that were announced by the President of the United States. The 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner swap is being prepared and is expected to take place. These guarantees were taken on by the Americans," the president said.
The head of state added that the Coordination Headquarters has already transferred the lists of 1,000 individuals to Russia.
Finally, Zelenskyy stressed once again that the United States played a mediating role in the exchange agreement, and Ukraine expects Washington to remain active in ensuring its implementation.
#Zelenskyy: If #Russia resumes massive attacks, #Ukraine will respond in kind pic.twitter.com/a3YHU1dlA9
— RBC-Ukraine (@NewsUkraineRBC) May 10, 2026
Prisoner swap
On May 8, US President Donald Trump announced that, at his request, Ukraine and Russia had agreed to a three-day ceasefire (from May 9 to 11). The agreement also included a prisoner exchange in a 1,000-for-1,000 format.
That same evening, Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that. However, the following day, Kremlin head Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia had allegedly been the first to propose a 500-for-500 exchange, to which Ukraine was supposedly "not ready." According to him, Kyiv said it would consider the proposal and then disappeared altogether.
At the same time, according to a source cited by RBC-Ukraine, Russia is trying to complicate the prisoner-swap process, thereby undermining not its commitments to Kyiv but those made to the United States.
