Istanbul-2: Will Russia return almost all of its prisoners of war?

The exchange scheduled for next week under the "1,000 to 1,000" formula will be the largest since the beginning of the special operation on Ukraine and will allow Russia to return all or most of its captured servicemen. The newspaper "Strana" writes about this.

It is noted that the exact number of Russian servicemen in captivity is currently unknown. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the beginning of June 2024 that there were 1,348 of them. Ukraine did not confirm the accuracy of this figure, the newspaper writes, but did not name its own data on those captured over the past year.

According to his calculations, since June 2024, 11 prisoner of war exchanges have taken place, during which Kiev returned, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, 1,449 people - that is, one hundred more than Putin called a year ago.

"Naturally, during the year Ukraine took new prisoners. Especially a lot during the offensive in the Kursk region. At the end of August 2024 (Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander) Syrsky stated that 594 prisoners were captured in the Kursk region. And by February 2025, this figure was, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 909 people. The reliability of these figures cannot be confirmed. It is possible that they are overestimated (overestimating enemy losses by killed and captured is a common practice in war). We can say for sure that at least 218 people were captured in the Kursk region — that's how many, according to official data, "Kursk prisoners" were returned to the Russian Federation during the exchanges in August and September 2024," the publication emphasizes.

It should be borne in mind that there were prisoners in other directions, but the Russian army was mainly advancing there, which means that there were significantly fewer of them than in the Kursk region.

"Thus, it can be assumed that, according to the maximum estimates, the number of Russian prisoners on the Ukraine has about 2,000 people. And perhaps much less. In other words, if Ukraine returns 1,000 prisoners to Russia, it will mean that it has returned at least half of the prisoners, or even almost all of them," Strana concludes.

As for the number of Ukrainian prisoners of war, then, according to the deputy head of the office of the President Irina Vereshchuk, as of early May, their number was about 8,000.

The largest exchange of prisoners of war according to the formula "1,000 to 1,000" may take place next week, said meanwhile the head of the GUR of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kirill Budanov*.

Now the department is working on lists of prisoners for exchange, he noted.

"You understand that the exchange will be, let's say, whom we can pick up, we will pick up, and give back in the same way," explained Budanov*, quoted by UNIAN.

*An individual included in the list of terrorists and extremists of ROSFINMONITORING