Russia, Ukraine agree POW swap at Abu Dhabi talks: US envoy

ABU DHABI

This handout photo from by Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) released on February 4, 2026, shows the first day of the second round of trilateral talks between delegates from Russia, Ukraine, and the US which began in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 4.

Russia and Ukraine agreed on a fresh prisoner swap at "productive" Washington-mediated talks underway in Abu Dhabi, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Thursday, stressing that more work lay ahead.

"Today, delegations from the United States, Ukraine, and Russia agreed to exchange 314 prisoners -- the first such exchange in five months," Witkoff said on social media.

"This outcome was achieved from peace talks that have been detailed and productive," though "significant work remains," he added in an X post.

Russia said that there had been "progress" in talks with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on finding an end to the four-year-war sparked by Moscow's full-scale invasion of its pro-Western neighbor.

"There is definitely progress, things are moving forward in a good, positive direction," Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev told state media.

He slammed what he described as attempts from European nations to "disrupt the progress" at the start of a second day of talks in the UAE between Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators.

The negotiations are the latest bid in diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting, Europe's deadliest since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes and much of eastern and southern Ukraine left decimated.

"The second day of talks in Abu Dhabi has begun. We're working in the same formats as Thursday: Trilateral consultations, group work, and subsequent alignment of positions," Ukraine's lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said Thursday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Feb. 4 that 55,000 of his country's troops had been killed, a rare assessment of battlefield losses by either side.

Russia has also stepped up strikes on Ukraine's power infrastructure, leaving many people, including residents of the capital Kiev, without power and shivering through temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius in recent days.

Ukraine's chief negotiator Umerov said "concrete steps and practical solutions" had been discussed in the first day of the talks.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters fighting would persist "until the Kiev regime makes the appropriate decisions."

Moscow is demanding that Kiev pull its troops out of swathes of the Donbas, including heavily fortified cities atop vast natural resources, before any deal.

It also wants international recognition that land seized in the invasion belongs to Russia.