Ukraine says it has begun talks with Russia over the exchange of prisoners captured by Kyiv as it presses on with its startling counter-incursion in the Kursk region.
The negotiations follow more than a week of heavy fighting in the western Russian region and what Ukraine’s domestic security service said was the “biggest capture of the enemy that has been carried out at one time”.
Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, told local media on Wednesday evening that his Russian counterpart had contacted him to open discussions on the exchange of prisoners of war.
Ukraine’s military intelligence, which leads negotiations on prisoners of war, confirmed it was working on an exchange.
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Kyiv has not disclosed the exact number of Russian prisoners its forces have captured in the Kursk operation but government officials and soldiers at the border said the figure was in the “hundreds”.
The talks come 10 days after Ukraine mounted its audacious counter-incursion into Russian territory. Kyiv’s top general, Oleksandr Syrsky, said on Thursday that Ukraine held 1,150sq km in the Kursk region, up from 1,000 sq km.
Gen Syrsky said his forces had complete control of the town of Sudzha, where a Ukrainian military office is being set up. The town, with a prewar population of 5,000, also houses a measuring station for natural gas on one of the last pipelines shipping Russian fuel to central Europe.
Ukrainian troops were advancing by between 500m and 1.5km each day in different directions, about half the distance reported on Tuesday, Gen Syrsky added.
Though not independently verified, both figures indicate that Ukraine’s offensive in Kursk is slowing. Its troops were continuing their attempts to occupy more territory, said Gen Syrsky.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that its own forces had pushed back Ukrainians in seven Kursk settlements between 30km and 90km from the border.
[Russians fleeing Ukraine’s incursion say Putin has abandoned themOpens in new window]
The capture of Russian prisoners is likely to boost Kyiv’s calls for the return of thousands of its own soldiers and civilians who have been taken during Russia’s 2½-year invasion and occupation of large swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Many young conscripts were captured by Ukrainian forces in the early phase of Kyiv’s stealthy incursion – the first such operation on Russian soil since the second World War.
While Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has not disclosed the objectives of the operation, he has repeatedly praised his soldiers for taking Russian captives on the battlefield and “replenishing” what he called an “exchange fund” for a swap of captives.
Before the incursion, each side already held hundreds of prisoners of war. President Vladimir Putin said in June that Russia held about 6,500 Ukrainian troops. He also said that Ukraine was holding more than 1,300 Russian soldiers, a figure confirmed by a person familiar with the situation.
Russian officials previously indicated that Moscow might move to suspend prisoner exchanges. But Mr Lubinets said his talks with his Russian opposite number Tatyana Moskalkova had given him hope that the warring sides could move forward with them soon.
“There was a proactive conversation [with our] Russian counterpart on this issue,” he said, adding that Moscow and Kyiv were “exchanging information” about each others’ prisoners.
“We have priority categories that we are ready to exchange. First of all, these are the seriously wounded,” he said. “Secondly, Ukrainian women, and thirdly, all those who remain in captivity.”
Mr Lubinets said he had informed the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross that “the rights of Russian prisoners of war are being protected and at any time Ukraine is ready to continue exchange processes based on the Geneva Convention”.
On Thursday, an official from Ukraine’s domestic security service, the SBU, said its special forces alone had captured 102 Russian soldiers of the 488th Motorised Rifle Regiment and the Chechen Akhmat unit in the Kursk region. “This is the biggest capture of the enemy that has been carried out at one time,” he said.
The official provided several videos and photographs of uniformed Russian soldiers with tape around their eyes and hands. In one video, dozens of soldiers were lying face down in a field with Ukrainian forces watching over them.
Photographs showed 12 captives being transported in a covered vehicle and dozens more sitting inside a large structure.
Mr Zelenskiy and Mr Lubinets both said on Wednesday that Ukrainian authorities would seek to set up army-led offices in Kursk that would provide humanitarian assistance to Russian residents.
Several Kursk region residents who fled under constant shelling and drone attacks to the eponymous regional capital said there had been no organised evacuation by authorities in the first days of the incursion.
Many people were forced to abandon their belongings, documents and sometimes even bedridden relatives and pets, they added. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024
