2 minute read
Russia and Ukraine have agreed their biggest ever release of prisoners after two days of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi, US envoy Jared Kushner told reporters on Wednesday.
“One of the positives is we agreed that we’re going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we’re going to finalize the numbers tomorrow,” he said, according to AFP.
Kushner and fellow US mediator Steve Witkoff will travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then to Dublin to debrief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Russian envoy Vladimir Medinsky and Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov also said a large scale prisoner exchange had been agreed, adding the numbers would be announced later.
According to the BBC, Kushner also noted that there is currently no trust between the two sides.
According to him, concluding peace agreements is a difficult process, but all the necessary components for reaching an agreement are in place, and efforts are now being made to bring them together into a comprehensive agreement.
Kushner added that the European side should also be involved in the negotiation process. He emphasized that productive discussions had taken place with representatives of the European Union and NATO in Abu Dhabi.