Ukraine, Russia Swap 314 Prisoners

One of the few areas in which Moscow and Kyiv can still cut a deal has produced a result. Ukraine and Russia carried out their first prisoner swap in four months, with each sending the other 157 captives after two days of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said Thursday. Russia's defense ministry quickly pushed out video of Russian prisoners, wrapped in national flags, boarding a bus in Belarus. Witkoff said the agreement shows that diplomacy can still yield concrete results, CBS News reports, even as the war grinds on. But hours earlier, peace talks adjourned in Abu Dhabi with little progress reported.

• Negotiations: The US European Command also announced that because of the talks, the military would resume high-level military dialogue with Russia. That communication had been suspended shortly before Russia's invasion in early 2022, per the AP. Otherwise, the negotiations, which lasted three hours on Thursday, ended the way past talks have, per the New York Times: with professions that they were productive and a plan to meet again but with no major issues resolved.

• Exchange: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the prisoner swap followed a long pause and credited Ukrainian troops for capturing Russians and bolstering what he called his nation's "exchange fund." He pledged continued efforts to free Ukrainians held in Russia. Kyiv accused Moscow in late January of freezing previous swap efforts; the last known exchange took place in October. Some of the Ukrainians involved in this swap were civilians, per the BBC.