As a result of the agreements reached in Istanbul in 2025, 2,300 thousand Russian military personnel and 170 civilians returned to Russia from Ukraine, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told “Izvestia“.
According to Galuzin, Moscow has handed over about 12 thousand bodies of dead servicemen to Ukraine and returned about 200. The implementation of the Istanbul agreements will continue, the Deputy Foreign Minister added, noting that this is a process “stretched out in time“.
Galuzin reported that 12 residents of the Kursk region are currently detained in Ukraine. The same figure was also given by the Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova. On December 20, she reported that a group of Russians had been returned to Russia, and several people who could not leave the Kherson region had returned to Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the conflict in 2022, Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners many times, and a large-scale exchange (in the format of “1000 for 1000“) was agreed in May, when the first direct negotiations were held in Istanbul after a nearly three-year break. Russia and Ukraine have also exchanged bodies of the dead.
At the end of the third round of talks, which took place in July, the parties agreed to exchange prisoners on a "1,200-for-1,200" formula. The process took place in stages: on August 24, Russia and Ukraine handed over 146 people, and on October 2, 185. In November, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that "Kiev has violated the agreement with Moscow":
"Less than 30% of the agreed 1,200 have been exchanged," she said at the time.