Ukraine watches warily as prisoner swap proves Moscow and West can negotiate

On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov quickly squashed any speculation that the prisoner deal could lead to negotiations over ending the war in Ukraine. But there has long been anxiety in Kyiv that supporters, especially the United States, might begin secret talks with Moscow. Ukrainian officials insisted on Friday that they would hold President Biden to his oft-repeated promise: “Nothing about Ukraine, without Ukraine.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelensky adviser, said in an interview with The Washington Post that Ukraine is now “too independent” to be sidestepped during any potential negotiations and to have cease-fire terms imposed by others.

“You won’t be able to agree upon something with Russia that concerns Ukraine without Ukraine,” Podolyak said. “The price of the war is too high, Ukraine’s informational influence is too high and a wrongful termination of the war will bring tragedy to not only Ukraine.”

But Ukrainians are aware that their country is surviving on donated weapons and money, borrowed and gifted, from abroad. If either of those lifelines get cut off, Ukraine is in deep trouble.

For that reason, word of the prisoner deal — the result of months of painstaking and complex diplomatic negotiations between Moscow and Washington — left some Ukrainians wary.

“There are concerns that this does not become a trend,” Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said, adding that whatever is agreed upon “should be a joint position with Ukraine.”

History shows good reasons for Kyiv to worry about being forced into compromises.

When the conflict with Russia began, 10 years ago, the leaders of France and Germany, François Hollande and Angela Merkel, pushed Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to sign a cease-fire deal, known as the Minsk accords, on deeply unfavorable terms.

Russia was treated as a guarantor of the deal rather than as a party to the conflict, allowing the Kremlin to persist in its false claim that the dispute was between Ukraine and leaders of two separatist Ukrainian regions — which had been taking orders from Moscow all along.

The Minsk accords proved impossible to implement, with Ukraine and Russia in a standoff over what the agreement required.

To put the prisoner swap in context — and avoid raising expectations about peace talks — some Ukrainians noted that Kyiv and Moscow, too, have carried out multiple exchanges of prisoners of war. Such trades represent the lowest common denominator of self-interest, they noted, and have not in any way created openings for peace talks.

A Ukrainian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive politics, said that successful prisoner exchanges did not imply talks to end the war. But the official stressed that Ukraine remains open to talks that are fair and adhere to international law.

“We have some talks with Russians, too, when it is about prisoners of war exchange, and thousands of people are free now,” the official said. “But it does nothing to push us to negotiations.”

Others noted that the West, by trading Russian criminals and spies — including a convicted assassin for an American journalist accused baselessly of espionage, Russian political opposition figures whose only misdeed was advocating for democracy, or others who committed minor crimes — would only create further incentive for Moscow to seize more innocent people.

“In exchange for innocent people detained illegally, Russia brings back home criminals who will soon return to subversive activities against the West,” Olena Halushka, a civil society activist, posted on X. “This is not a ‘good will.’ This hostage-taking may enter a new cycle and last indefinitely, it is a state-level terrorism.”

While the swap represented a diplomatic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainians insist he will not succeed in forcing their country to trade away its ambitions for a free, democratic future in the European Union.

For some Ukrainian officials, the swap represented a return to the past. “The best Cold War practices of exchanging dissidents and spies are being revived,” said one senior Ukrainian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.

The senior official expressed no concern that Western officials involved in the trade might have made any concessions regarding support for Ukraine’s defense as a condition for the exchange.

“Negotiations take place all of the time, in the worst moments,” the senior official said. “And thank god, they’re happening. It would be worse if they weren’t going on and governments were just jumping to nuclear strikes.”

Anastacia Galouchka and Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga contributed to this report.