Russia, Ukraine swap 185 POWs each: Russian defense ministry
Russia and Ukraine exchanged 185 prisoners of war on Friday, the Russian defense ministry said, in one of the few areas of cooperation between the warring sides.
"On June 5, 185 Russian service members were returned from territory controlled by the Kiev regime. In exchange, 185 Ukrainian prisoners of war were handed over," the ministry was quoted as saying by the state RIA news agency.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The letter, the first public message Zelensky has written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power.
Zelensky acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war. “I am proposing a meeting,” Zelensky wrote on June 4.
