Zelenskyy says Ukraine is working on a prisoner exchange with Russia

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine is working to resume prisoner exchanges with Russia that could bring home 1,200 Ukrainian prisoners, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday, a day after his national security chief announced progress in negotiations.

“We are … counting on the resumption of POW exchanges,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “Many meetings, negotiations and calls are currently taking place to ensure this.”

Rustem Umerov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Saturday he held consultations mediated by Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on resuming exchanges.

He said the parties agreed to activate prisoner exchange agreements brokered in Istanbul to release 1,200 Ukrainians. Moscow did not immediately comment.

The Istanbul agreements refer to prisoner-exchange protocols established with Turkish mediation in 2022 that set rules for large, coordinated swaps. Since then, Russia and Ukraine have traded thousands of prisoners, though exchanges have been sporadic.

Umerov said technical consultations would be held soon to finalize procedural and organizational details, expressing hope that returning Ukrainians could “celebrate the New Year and Christmas holidays at home — at the family table and next to their relatives.”

In other developments, energy infrastructure was damaged by Russian drone strikes overnight into Sunday in Ukraine’s Odesa region, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. A solar power plant was among the damaged sites.

Ukraine is desperately trying to fend off relentless Russian aerial attacks that have brought rolling blackouts across Ukraine on the brink of winter.

Combined missile and drone strikes on the power grid have coincided with Ukraine’s efforts to hold back a Russian battlefield push aimed at capturing the eastern stronghold of Pokrovsk.

Russia fired a total of 176 drones and one missile overnight, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday, adding that Ukrainian forces shot down or neutralized 139 drones.

On the front line, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces had taken two settlements in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army has scaled up its attacks, placing the short-handed Ukrainian military under severe strain. Ukrainian officials said in September that the front line has grown in length to nearly 800 miles.

Russia has paid a high price in casualties and armor for its war of attrition, however, and Ukraine has held it to incremental battlefield gains.

Ukrainian forces struck a major oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, along with a warehouse storing drones for the elite Rubicon drone unit in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region, Ukraine’s general staff said Sunday. Russian officials did not immediately confirm the attacks.

Months of Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries have aimed to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue the war.

Russia’s defense ministry said Sunday that its forces shot down 57 Ukrainian drones overnight.