COMMENTARY: Nine thousand five hundred returned — the only channel that still holds between Kyiv and Moscow

COMMENTARY: Nine thousand five hundred returned — the only channel that still holds between Kyiv and Moscow

Introduction: the humanitarian as last thread

A wartime paradox worth reflecting on

There is something almost incomprehensible, and yet real, about the following situation: Russia and Ukraine have been in total war for more than four years. Their forces kill each other daily across hundreds of kilometers of front. Their missiles and drones cross paths in the air. Their leaders exchange accusations of war crimes in international bodies. And yet, regularly, delegations meet — discreetly, via intermediaries — to conduct prisoner exchanges. This paradox is not accidental. It reveals something important about the nature of conflicts and about the spaces that even the most brutal war cannot completely close.

As of June 26, 2026, more than 9,500 Ukrainians have returned home via these exchanges. One thousand five hundred and ninety-six since the start of this year alone. This 76th exchange — 160 prisoners freed simultaneously — is the latest in a long series forming the only functional cooperation channel between the two belligerents. This commentary examines what this channel means, why it holds, and what it tells us about the possibilities and limits of diplomacy in this conflict.

What 9,500 means and does not mean

The figure of 9,500 freed is remarkable in the context of a conflict that has produced massive destruction and considerable human losses. It attests to a mechanism that works — imperfectly, with delays, with frustrations — but that produces concrete, measurable results. It also attests to Ukrainian resolve not to abandon its prisoners, and to a minimal Russian willingness to participate in these exchanges, driven by its own interests (recovering its captured soldiers). This is not peace. This is not reconciliation. It is the functional minimum that two parties can maintain even in a maximal conflict.

What this figure does not mean: that a general peace is near, that the two parties' positions have converged, or that prisoner exchanges are a precursor to negotiation on fundamental questions. These exchanges work precisely because they are kept separate from political questions. The moment one tried to connect them to a broader political negotiation, they would be blocked like everything else.

Why this channel holds: converging interests

The Ukrainian interest: recovering every citizen

Ukraine's interest in prisoner exchanges is obvious and noble: recover every captured citizen, honor the state's commitment to its soldiers and civilians, maintain the social cohesion of a population that knows the state will not abandon them. Zelensky has made this principle — "we bring our people home" — an explicit commitment since the start of the war. Every successful exchange confirms this commitment and reinforces the trust of soldiers who continue to fight.

There is also a legal dimension: freed prisoners are potential witnesses for ongoing international justice proceedings. Testimonies collected by specialized teams during post-release debriefings feed the files of the International Criminal Court and other accountability mechanisms. Recovering prisoners also means recovering evidence — a dimension that Kyiv has never hidden but does not publicize in public communications about exchanges, for obvious diplomatic reasons.

The Russian interest: recovering soldiers without political concessions

Russia's interest in exchanges is less clearly expressed but equally real. Russia recovers its captured soldiers — men whose families exert real pressure on local authorities for them to return. In a society where mobilization is already a source of internal tension, the accumulation of unrecovered prisoners would be an additional grievance. Exchanges are also a means for Moscow to present itself on the international stage as an actor that still respects certain humanitarian norms — contradicting the total pariah state narrative and preserving a few interlocutors in the Global South.

It is important to note that Russian participation in exchanges does not mean Moscow respects humanitarian norms in its detention facilities. The two things are separable, and Russia has clearly chosen to separate them: it participates in exchanges — which costs it little and brings public relations benefits — while maintaining detention conditions that international organizations describe as serious violations of international humanitarian law.

The United Arab Emirates: anatomy of a mediation that works

How Abu Dhabi became the principal intermediary

The role of the United Arab Emirates in mediating prisoner exchanges is not accidental. It results from a deliberate positioning by Abu Dhabi since the start of the conflict: maintaining relations with both belligerents, avoiding taking public sides on political questions, and offering practical mediation services on humanitarian files. This positioning is consistent with the broader Emirati foreign policy: the UAE seeks to position itself as a regional and global mediator in a variety of conflicts, from Yemen to the Red Sea.

To play this role, the UAE needs the access granted by its economic and political relations with Russia — relations that have drawn criticism in Western capitals, but which prove to have practical value for Ukrainian prisoners. This is not comfortable to admit for advocates of total isolation of Russia. But it is the reality: actors who maintain channels with Moscow can sometimes use those channels for humanitarian purposes that those who have cut all bridges cannot accomplish.

The limits of Emirati mediation

Emirati mediation has clear limits that it would be dishonest not to name. It cannot guarantee the detention conditions of prisoners before their release. It cannot demand Russia's compliance with ICRC norms as a condition of exchanges — because if it did, Russia would refuse to negotiate. It also cannot resolve political questions — borders, sovereignty, reparations — for which its very neutrality makes it an unsuitable mediator.

The UAE has found their niche: humanitarian exchanges in a politically deadlocked conflict. This niche is valuable and must be preserved. But one must not overestimate what this niche can accomplish. It can free prisoners. It cannot build peace. And between the two, the difference is considerable.

The timing of exchanges: not a straight line

Exchanges that accelerate and slow down

The pace of prisoner exchanges since 2022 has not been linear. There have been periods of acceleration — notably around moments when international pressure was stronger, or when both parties had a particular interest in a quick exchange. And there have been periods of deadlock, sometimes prolonged, when negotiations stalled due to disagreements over lists, particular political tensions, or military incidents that complicated the context.

The current continuity of exchanges — 1,596 freed since the start of 2026, a pace of several dozen to more than a hundred per exchange — is the result of patient diplomatic work and the accumulation of procedural expertise on both sides. Each successful exchange makes the next one slightly easier to organize, because the interlocutors know each other, the procedures are refined, and the lines of communication are established.

Factors that could block future exchanges

This fragile channel could be blocked by several types of events. A major military escalation that would make it politically impossible for one party to cooperate on anything with the adversary. A serious diplomatic incident involving the Emirati mediators. A unilateral political decision by one of the two governments to use prisoners as leverage on political files — which both parties have so far avoided doing explicitly. Or public opinion pressure in one of the two countries that would make continuing the exchanges politically costly.

These risks are real and must be managed actively. This is one of the reasons why Ukraine and its allies have an interest in keeping exchanges separate from other diplomatic files: mixing them creates contamination risks that could block the only functional channel in an otherwise completely deadlocked conflict.

What 9,500 freed say about Ukraine

A society that honors its commitments even under bombardment

The fact that Ukraine has organized 76 exchanges and freed 9,500 of its citizens since the start of the war says something important about the nature of the Ukrainian state and society. In a conflict of this intensity, where national survival itself is at stake, other governments might have prioritized other objectives. Ukraine chose to maintain this file as a national priority — mobilizing diplomatic resources, accepting imperfect intermediaries, negotiating with an adversary whose crimes it simultaneously documents.

This choice is not self-evident. It involves tensions: between justice (why release Russian soldiers some of whom have committed atrocities?) and humanism (our prisoners deserve to come home); between effectiveness (some released Russian soldiers return to fight) and principle (every Ukrainian prisoner deserves to be recovered); between domestic politics (families of prisoners demand results) and foreign policy (maintaining channels with Moscow carries political costs). Ukraine has managed these tensions with remarkable sophistication.

Resilience as a model

The management of prisoners is a microcosm of broader Ukrainian resilience. A country that, under the pressure of total war, maintains its institutions, organizes prisoner exchanges, documents crimes, holds local elections, and maintains a free press in unoccupied areas — this country demonstrates that democracy and the rule of law are not luxuries reserved for peacetime. They can be maintained, imperfectly but really, even under the worst conditions.

This demonstration is itself a response to the "realism" theorists who argue that morality and law have no place in international politics. Ukraine proves this is not true — that principles can be maintained even under maximum pressure, and that maintaining them has strategic value, not just moral value. Ukraine's allies, and international observers who doubted its capacity to hold, have taken note.

The humanitarian channel within a broader diplomatic strategy

What exchanges cannot accomplish

It would be dangerous — and intellectually dishonest — to overestimate what prisoner exchanges can accomplish within the broader conflict. They do not change military balances. They do not change political positions on territorial sovereignty, security guarantees, or reparations. They do not reduce the destruction caused by the war. They do not bring the cessation of hostilities closer. They do something more modest and equally important: they maintain a principle — the value of every captured human life — in a conflict that tends to reduce everything to strategic abstractions.

What I observe in discussions on Ukrainian diplomacy is sometimes a temptation to overload prisoner exchanges with a significance they cannot carry. Some present them as a sign of Russian "openness" toward broader negotiations — which they are not. Others present them as a beginning of reconciliation — which they are not either. They are what they are: a practical agreement on a specific humanitarian file, maintained because both parties find minimal interest in it. No more, no less.

What exchanges can accomplish: building diplomatic capacity

What exchanges can accomplish more indirectly is building a minimal diplomatic capacity between the two parties and with the intermediaries. The procedures, contacts, and verification mechanisms developed for prisoner exchanges represent a practical capital that could be useful in other contexts if political conditions changed. This is not a precondition for peace — the exchanges do not create the political trust necessary for substantive negotiations. But they maintain operational reflexes that could become useful.

Professional diplomats working on these files know this: peace does not emerge from a vacuum. It requires interlocutors who know each other, procedures that have worked in a limited context, and intermediaries who have established their credibility. Prisoner exchanges contribute marginally to building these conditions — not enough to create peace, but enough that they should not be neglected.

The context: a war deadlocked on everything else

Putin and Istanbul: total deadlock

To understand why prisoner exchanges stand out as the only functional channel, one need only look at what is not working. Putin declared on June 23, 2026 his desire to negotiate "on the basis of the 2022 Istanbul agreements" — conditions that, according to the ISW the same day, amount to total Ukrainian capitulation. Political negotiations are therefore not merely deadlocked but structurally impossible under these preconditions.

Negotiations on borders, the status of occupied territories, security guarantees for Ukraine — all these files are in a state of complete deadlock. There is no agreed negotiating framework, no formal ongoing process, not even an agreement in principle on the rules of future dialogue. This total diplomatic void makes prisoner exchanges even more visible by contrast: they are patches of light in a uniformly dark diplomatic landscape.

Russia's war economy under pressure: influence on diplomacy

The growing economic pressure on Russia — deficit exceeding 80 billion dollars, military spending rising by 4–5 trillion rubles, bond yields at 15 percent — could in time alter Russian calculations. Not immediately, not predictably, but economic constraints have historically played a role in belligerents' decisions to seek exits from prolonged conflicts.

If this pressure intensifies, the question that will arise is: will Russia choose to expand the already-existing channels of cooperation — such as prisoner exchanges — toward more substantive domains? Or will it maintain a tight separation between humanitarian files where it cooperates and political files where it remains intransigent? The history of exchanges since 2022 supports the second hypothesis. But economic constraints are a variable that can shift calculations.

Families waiting: the human face of the file

Families' associations: a civic force that carries weight

Behind the statistics — 9,500 freed, 1,596 in 2026 — there are thousands of families still waiting. Mothers whose sons have been listed as missing for two years. Wives whose husbands have given no sign of life since they were captured. Children growing up not knowing whether their father is still alive. These families are not passive — they have organized, formed associations, maintain databases, coordinate with Ukrainian authorities and international organizations.

These prisoner families' associations exert real political pressure on the Ukrainian government to keep exchanges as a national priority. They are also, indirectly, a resource for negotiators: they maintain information on prisoners (photos, last known details, testimonies from other detainees), which allows names to be attached to files and more precise lists to be drawn up for future exchanges.

Uncertainty as torture: those whose fate is unknown

For many families, the problem is not even waiting for an exchange: it is not knowing whether their loved one is still alive. Soldiers listed as missing in battles of 2022 or 2023 for whom no confirmation — neither death nor capture — has been obtained. Civilians deported to distant Russian regions from whom families have lost all trace. This uncertainty is a particular form of suffering — neither grief nor hope, but void.

Human rights organizations work to document these cases, compiling testimonies, seeking information via indirect channels. This work is difficult, slow, and often insufficient. It reveals a gap in existing international mechanisms: the ICRC and other humanitarian organizations do not have sufficient access to Russian detention facilities to establish complete prisoner lists. This Russian opacity is itself a violation of international humanitarian law. And it prolongs the torment of waiting families.

International humanitarian law: theory and reality

Russia's formal obligations

Russia is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols. These instruments impose clear obligations on the treatment of prisoners of war: protection from torture and degrading treatment, ICRC access, notification of capture to families and the authorities of the state of origin, and minimum material conditions of detention. These obligations have not been systematically respected, according to all available independent sources.

This systematic violation of international humanitarian law by Russia is not new — it was documented during the Chechen wars, during the 2014 conflict in Donbas, and since 2022 on an unprecedented scale. The persistence of these violations demonstrates that international law is binding only to the extent it is backed by credible accountability mechanisms. In their absence, it remains a set of norms that bad-faith actors can ignore with relative impunity.

Toward reinforced accountability

Building accountability mechanisms for violations of prisoners' rights in Russia is a long-term objective that human rights organizations and certain governments are actively pursuing. The ICC has issued arrest warrants. National tribunals — notably in Germany, the Netherlands, and Ukraine itself — are conducting in absentia proceedings against Russian officials. These efforts are important but insufficient in the short term to change detention conditions.

What can change these conditions in the short term is constant diplomatic pressure via all available channels, combined with publicity about violations — each published human rights report, each freed prisoner's testimony confirming violations, increases the reputational cost for Russia in a way that, even marginally, contributes to creating incentives to improve conditions. This is not a miracle solution. But in a context of total deadlock, marginal solutions matter.

What this channel reveals about the possibilities of diplomacy

The diplomacy of limited spaces

The maintenance of prisoner exchanges in an otherwise completely deadlocked conflict illustrates what some diplomats call "limited-space diplomacy": the identification and preservation of spaces of functional cooperation in specific domains, without claiming that these spaces will necessarily expand to encompass the whole conflict. This approach is less ambitious than total diplomacy — it does not promise peace. But it is more realistic: it produces results where possible, without conditioning those results on a comprehensive agreement impossible to reach under current conditions.

The underlying philosophy is simple: it is better to free 9,500 people via imperfect cooperation than to free no one while awaiting an ideal solution that never comes. This pragmatic philosophy is often criticized by advocates of a maximalist principled approach that would refuse any cooperation with an aggressor. But in the reality of war, captured persons cannot afford to wait for the theoretical consistency of diplomatic positions.

The limits of humanitarian pragmatism

This pragmatism has limits I do not wish to minimize. By maintaining channels with Russia, even only on humanitarian files, one creates habits of cooperation that can, if one is not vigilant, slide toward a normalization of the relationship that is not desirable. Russia can use these channels to maintain the illusion that it is an acceptable partner in other domains.

The response to this limit is not to close humanitarian channels — that would sacrifice prisoners on the altar of diplomatic purity. It is to maintain a clear and public distinction between humanitarian cooperation and political cooperation. Prisoner exchanges do not mean Russia is an acceptable partner. They mean that on this specific file, cooperation produces results that total intransigence would not produce. This distinction must be maintained and explained, permanently.

9,500: a figure that speaks to history

The historical comparison

In the history of modern armed conflicts, 9,500 prisoners freed via exchanges during an active war is a remarkable figure. For comparison: during the Korean War (1950–1953), prisoner exchanges only took place after the cessation of hostilities. During the Israeli-Arab conflict, prisoner exchanges were often associated with broader political agreements. The Ukrainian model — ongoing exchanges during active war, kept separate from political questions — is relatively rare in the contemporary history of conflicts.

This singularity does not reflect a general model applicable to all conflicts. It reflects a particular combination of factors: the availability of an effective intermediary (UAE), the presence of mutual interest in exchanges on both parties' sides, and the Ukrainian political decision to prioritize these exchanges even when they involve releasing Russian soldiers who might return to combat. These factors are not found in every conflict. But when they are, they deserve to be exploited to the maximum.

What history will retain from these exchanges

The history of this war will be written around battles, political decisions, military and economic data. But it will also contain this thread — these 9,500 people freed, these families reunited, these regular exchanges testifying that even in the worst of wars, something human can survive. This is not a sufficient consolation for all the losses. But it is a reality that history should record with the same attention it pays to destructions. The only channel that holds between Kyiv and Moscow is a humanitarian channel. That says something essential about what we want to preserve, even at war.

The 40-day pressure: a strategy linking war and economy

Striking the enemy in the wallet

Zelensky's announcement of a 40-day pressure campaign targeting Russian military and logistical infrastructure, according to RBC-Ukraine of June 26, 2026, represents a significant strategic evolution. This campaign includes repeated strikes on deep targets — refineries, fuel depots, railway hubs — hundreds of kilometers behind the front line. The objective is to cumulate economic and military effects on Russia's war capacity.

The Kapotnya refinery near Moscow, struck and considered unlikely to resume operations before 2027, and the Bashneft refineries in Ufa, hit after a flight of 1,300 kilometers, are the most spectacular examples. These strikes reduce Russian refining capacity, force costly imports, and create additional pressure on a federal budget already in deficit by more than 80 billion dollars.

The convergence of military and economic pressures

What makes the 40-day strategy particularly effective is its convergence with the pressure exerted by Western sanctions. On one side, the 21 EU sanctions packages reduce Russian revenues and limit access to technologies. On the other, Ukrainian strikes physically destroy the infrastructure generating those revenues. The two pressure vectors reinforce each other: financial markets observe the refinery strikes and adjust their assessments of Russian risk accordingly.

The yield on Russian government bonds at 15 percent in June 2026, coinciding precisely with announcements of increased military spending and news of refinery strikes, illustrates this convergence. Each strike sends a signal to markets: Russia's economic fragility is real, not merely theoretical. And markets, as always, anticipate future realities before official communiqués acknowledge them.

Ukrainian social cohesion: what the figures do not say

A society that holds despite everything

Four years after the start of the war, Ukrainian social cohesion is one of the most remarkable — and least explained — facts of this conflict. Predictions of internal collapse, fatal political divisions, and a massive exodus of the working-age population — none of these predictions materialized at the level some analysts anticipated. Ukraine still functions as a state, organizes prisoner exchanges, maintains its institutions, and manages a war economy with the help of its allies.

This resilience is not accidental. It is the product of considerable political and social work, of leaders who chose to stay in the country, of an extraordinarily active civil society despite the war, and of a population that collectively decided its survival as a nation was worth more than individual security. This is not romantic heroism — it is a collective and rational decision in the face of an existential threat.

Ukrainian human capital despite exile

Ukraine has lost several million refugees — mainly women and children — to neighboring countries since February 2022. This massive displacement could have devastated the Ukrainian economy and society. But many of these refugees maintain economic ties with Ukraine, send financial transfers, and are preparing to return when conditions allow. The Ukrainian human capital in exile is not lost — it is waiting.

Striking contrast with Russia: the Russian brain drain since 2022 is largely irreversible. The 500,000 to 700,000 skilled Russian professionals who left the country are massively integrated into their host countries and have severed their ties with Russia. The fundamental difference: Ukrainians who fled an unjust war will return to rebuild their country. Russians who fled a criminal regime will not return to perpetuate its continuity.

The Budapest Memorandum: the cruelest lesson of recent history

1994: Ukraine disarmed on the faith of Russian promises

In 1994, Ukraine held the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal — a legacy of the USSR. It agreed to dismantle it in exchange for the Budapest Memorandum, signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia, which guaranteed its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Russia, as a signatory, violated these guarantees by annexing Crimea in 2014 and invading Ukraine in 2022.

This betrayal is at the heart of every discussion about future security guarantees for Ukraine. How can one trust another memorandum, other promises, other paper guarantees? The Ukrainian answer is clear: one cannot. The only credible guarantee is membership in a collective defense alliance whose automatic military response mechanisms make aggression too costly for the aggressor. That is NATO, and nothing else.

What NATO must concretely offer

Ukrainian membership in NATO is politically complex under current conditions — an alliance cannot admit a member in open war without triggering Article 5. But the Ankara Summit of July 7–8, 2026 is an opportunity to formulate a credible promise: a formal conditional invitation contingent on cessation of hostilities, coupled with robust interim security guarantees provided by individual members.

These interim guarantees — bilateral defense commitments, delivery of defensive weapons, presence of allied forces in Ukraine as a deterrent signal — do not replace Article 5, but they send Moscow a clear message: any attempt to resume a major offensive against Ukraine would face coordinated allied resistance. This type of interim guarantee is the minimal form of commitment NATO can provide to Kyiv without triggering a general war.

Conclusion: the necessary minimum and the possible maximum

Preserve the channel, amplify the exchanges

This commentary argues for two simple things. First: preserve the prisoner exchange channel against any temptation to politicize it, condition it on progress in other files, or sacrifice it to principles of diplomatic purity that would only keep people in captivity longer. This channel is fragile. It deserves to be handled with care.

Second: amplify exchanges within the margins of the possible. This requires strengthening international pressure on Russia to improve detention conditions and grant full ICRC access. It requires supporting intermediaries — UAE and others — that make these exchanges possible. And it requires maintaining the resources — diplomatic, human, financial — for the Ukrainian government to continue organizing these complex operations even under the pressure of total war.

For the 9,500 who have returned, and for those still waiting

I end with them — the 9,500 who have returned and the thousands still waiting. Each of the 9,500 freed represents a chain of diplomatic efforts, discreet negotiations, logistical procedures, and human interventions that made possible a return no one guaranteed. Each of those still waiting represents a moral and political obligation not yet honored. The channel holds. It must hold longer still, and carry more. That is the minimum that human dignity demands, even at war.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Sources and method

This commentary draws on data published by Kyiv Independent, Interfax-Ukraine, and RBC-Ukraine on June 26, 2026, regarding the 76th exchange. Analyses on detention conditions are based on published reports from recognized human rights organizations (HRW, UN special rapporteurs) since 2022, extrapolated to the present. Reflections on Emirati mediation are based on official public statements and published analyses. I do not have access to the confidential details of negotiations.

Bias and limits

This text is clearly partisan in favor of Ukraine and its prisoners. I did not have direct access to freed prisoners or their families. Reflections on what those freed "feel" are extrapolations based on testimonies from previous exchanges, not direct observations. Historical comparisons are approximate and serve to illustrate trends, not to establish precise equivalences.

Sources

Primary sources

Kyiv Independent — 160 Ukrainian prisoners freed in the 76th exchange — June 26, 2026

Interfax-Ukraine — 1,596 Ukrainians freed since early 2026, more than 9,500 since 2022 — June 26, 2026

RBC-Ukraine — Ukraine and Russia complete the third phase of the 160/160 exchange — June 26, 2026

ISW — Assessment of June 23: Russian diplomatic positions unchanged — June 23, 2026

Ukrainska Pravda — Putin, Istanbul, and the diplomatic deadlock — June 23, 2026

Secondary sources

United24 Media — Russian deficit exceeds 80 billion: wartime context — June 23, 2026

Bloomberg via Ground News — Russia increases war spending — June 23, 2026

Caliber.az — Seoul and North Korean prisoners held in Ukraine — June 23, 2026

1lurer.am — Exchange of 160 for 160 between Russia and Ukraine — June 26, 2026