How Prisoner Exchanges Work: The Rules Behind Wartime Swaps

WarBrief Live | November 12, 2026 | Explainer

A wartime prisoner exchange is a negotiated, law-governed handover: the two sides agree lists and a formula, a neutral intermediary verifies identities and oversees the transfer, and the captives go home — usually in stages, not all at once.

The question is back in the headlines because Russia and Ukraine agreed in principle on a large-scale exchange at talks in Abu Dhabi on November 10–11, 2026, with the final numbers due to be settled on November 12. US envoy Jared Kushner called it the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners of the war. But the deal is only the latest chapter in a system that has been running, quietly and fitfully, since February 2022 — and its rules were written long before that, in the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

What is a prisoner exchange — and who counts as a prisoner of war?

A prisoner exchange is a reciprocal release: each side hands over people it holds to the other side, usually at a border crossing or in a neutral country, under an agreement reached through negotiation. In the Russia–Ukraine war, exchanges have covered captured soldiers first, but they have also included detained civilians — the October 23, 2026 swap at the Novaya Guta crossing in Belarus, reported at 270 prisoners per side, included nine civilians on the Ukrainian side, according to reporting of the exchange.

Who qualifies as a prisoner of war is defined by the Third Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949, which covers members of the armed forces and certain defined categories — including war correspondents and civilian contractors authorised to accompany the armed forces — who fall into the power of the enemy. The Convention applies to those people from the moment they are captured until their final release and repatriation. Crucially, prisoners of war are not punished for taking part in hostilities: their detention is preventive, to stop them returning to the battlefield, not a sentence. That distinction is what separates a wartime exchange from every other kind of prisoner movement.

What do the Geneva Conventions actually require?

The Third Geneva Convention sets out the rules in its section on the termination of captivity. Three articles do most of the work. Articles 109 and 110 require the direct repatriation of seriously wounded and sick prisoners during active hostilities, with Mixed Medical Commissions — medical professionals from both sides and neutral countries — deciding individual cases. Article 111 allows prisoners to be interned in a neutral country until hostilities end. And Article 118, the cornerstone, states that prisoners of war “shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities”.

Two points about Article 118 matter. First, the trigger is the cessation of active hostilities, not a peace treaty or a formal end to the war — a deliberately practical standard. Second, the obligation is not conditional on reciprocity: each side must release its prisoners whether or not the other side complies. The ICRC’s updated Commentary on the Convention, completed in 2020, stresses that repatriation need not be instantaneous — transport, identity checks and reception arrangements take time — but it must happen as soon as reasonably possible. Article 117 adds a further guardrail: a repatriated person may not be used in active military service again.

How does a swap move from agreement to handover?

In practice, an exchange runs through five stages. First comes the political signal: one side, or a mediator, proposes an exchange and the other side accepts the idea in principle. That is where the Abu Dhabi deal stands now — agreement in principle, with the details still to be fixed. Second comes the technical negotiation, where the two sides argue over numbers, categories and timing. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which runs Kyiv’s side of the process, says some exchanges take weeks or months of negotiation, often across several parallel tracks, and there is no set schedule for how often they happen, according to the Kyiv Independent’s explainer on the process.

Third, each side draws up its lists. Ukraine submits lists of all Ukrainians it believes are in captivity or missing and requests their return; Russia, which has no single government body for exchanges, fields representatives from its Defence Ministry, the FSB, the prison service and sometimes its human rights commissioner. Fourth, the lists are verified — names checked against detention records, identities confirmed, and medical cases assessed. Fifth comes the handover itself: the prisoners are transported to an agreed point, usually a border crossing, and transferred in the presence of the intermediary. The October 2026 swap took place at Novaya Guta on the Belarus border; earlier exchanges have used the Mokrany–Domanove route and other crossings.

Throughout, the ICRC works as a neutral intermediary. Under Article 126 of the Convention its delegates have the right to visit prisoners, interview them without witnesses and choose the places they visit; under Article 9 it may offer its services to the parties. As the ICRC itself puts it, it acts only at the request and with the agreement of the parties, it does not decide who is released, and it cannot force access to detention sites. Its job is to make the transfer safe, humane and dignified — and its confidentiality is the price of its access. In the Russia–Ukraine war, the ICRC says it has passed news to more than 12,500 families on both sides about the fate and whereabouts of a loved one.

By the numbers: the Russia–Ukraine exchange record

Caveat: figures marked CONFIRMED are supported by two or more reputable sources or by the named official body; figures marked REPORTED rest on a single source or an unattributed report and should be treated as provisional.

Why do the numbers stay secret until the swap?

The secrecy frustrates families, journalists and the public, but it is structural. Lists are the currency of the negotiation: each name a side holds is leverage, and each name it wants back is a demand. Publishing a figure before it is agreed lets the other side hold out for more, lets domestic audiences judge a deal before it exists, and — in the worst case — exposes individual prisoners to retaliation if a deal collapses. That is why the pattern in this war has been consistent: the political announcement first, the numbers later. At Abu Dhabi, US envoy Jared Kushner said the numbers would be finalised the following day, November 12, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy floated a range of 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners per side. Neither figure is confirmed until the technical session settles it.

The secrecy also reflects a genuine information gap. Ukraine does not publicly disclose how many of its soldiers are held in Russian captivity, and neither side publishes a full list of those it holds. Verification therefore depends on the intermediary and on the lists the two sides exchange with each other — not on public accounting. Families learn what happened to their relatives largely through the ICRC’s family-links work and through the release operations themselves.

All-for-all or phased: which formula wins?

There are two basic formulas. An all-for-all exchange releases every prisoner each side holds, in one operation. A phased exchange releases agreed numbers in stages, often tied to further rounds of talks. Ukraine has consistently proposed all-for-all since the start of the full-scale invasion; Russia has so far rejected it, according to the Kyiv Independent. In practice, the war has run on phased swaps: typically 100 to 300 prisoners per side every two or three months, with occasional much larger rounds after direct negotiations — the 1,000-for-1,000 exchange in May 2025 followed three rounds of talks in Istanbul, and the 200-for-200 exchange in March 2026 followed talks in Geneva.

Each formula has a logic. All-for-all is cleaner for families and removes the bargaining chip entirely, but it requires both sides to agree on the full lists — including the prisoners each side would rather not return, such as those it accuses of crimes. Phased swaps keep the channel open and build trust incrementally, but they let each round become a fresh negotiation, and the prisoners left behind wait for a round that may never come. The Abu Dhabi deal is a phased deal by design: a large single round, with the numbers set in a follow-on technical session, while the wider war continues.

What happens to the seriously wounded and sick?

The seriously wounded and sick are the one category the Convention singles out for release even while fighting continues. Articles 109 and 110 require their direct repatriation during hostilities, and where the two sides cannot agree on which cases qualify, the decision is made under the Model Agreement and the regulations on Mixed Medical Commissions annexed to the Convention. Prisoners who are not sick enough for direct repatriation but have undergone prolonged captivity may be accommodated in a neutral country instead, under Article 111.

This is where the medical and the political overlap. A wounded prisoner is both a humanitarian case and a bargaining chip, and the medical commissions exist precisely to take that decision out of politics. In practice, the wounded and sick have often been included in the general exchange rounds rather than repatriated separately — a sign of how far practice has drifted from the Convention’s design, and of why the ICRC keeps pressing for direct repatriation as a standalone step.

Who are the mediators — and why the UAE, Türkiye and Qatar?

Prisoner exchanges need a go-between the two sides trust, and in this war that role has fallen to a small group of states plus the ICRC. The United Arab Emirates has mediated exchanges directly — a 146-for-146 swap last year followed UAE mediation, according to Al Jazeera — and Abu Dhabi hosted the November 2026 talks themselves. Türkiye hosted the three rounds of direct talks in Istanbul between May and July that produced the large-scale exchanges of that period. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have also been reported as mediators of exchanges in this war, and the ICRC facilitates transfers as the standing neutral intermediary.

The pattern is not accidental. A mediator in a prisoner exchange needs three things: working relations with both capitals, a venue the two sides will accept, and no direct stake in the outcome. The Gulf states and Türkiye have all kept channels open to both Moscow and Kyiv, which is why the humanitarian track has kept moving even while the political track stalled — the Abu Dhabi talks were the first direct negotiations between the two sides in nine months, yet exchanges had continued throughout that gap.

How is a wartime swap different from a criminal prisoner transfer?

The confusion is understandable: both involve moving a prisoner from one country to another. But they run on different law, different consent rules and different purposes, and conflating them is the single most common error in coverage of this topic. A wartime prisoner exchange is governed by the Geneva Conventions: the prisoner is not serving a sentence, the release is a humanitarian act between belligerents, and after hostilities end repatriation is mandatory, not discretionary. A criminal prisoner transfer is governed by treaties such as the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons of 1983: the prisoner is serving a sentence imposed by a court, the transfer moves them home to serve the rest of that sentence, and it requires a final judgment, nationality in the receiving state, at least six months of the sentence remaining, the consent of the prisoner, and the agreement of both states.

The practical differences follow from that. In a transfer, the sentence continues — the prisoner is not freed, only relocated. In an exchange, the prisoner is released. In a transfer, the prisoner’s consent is a formal condition, verified by the sentencing state. In an exchange, there is no equivalent consent procedure: the release is agreed between the parties, and the ICRC’s role is to ensure the transfer is safe and humane. And in a transfer, either state can refuse for its own reasons; in an exchange after hostilities end, refusal is a breach of the Convention.

What does the Abu Dhabi deal change?

On its own terms, the Abu Dhabi agreement is significant but limited. It is the first concrete outcome of the first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in nine months, and if the floated range of 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners per side holds, it would be the largest exchange of the war — bigger than the 1,000-for-1,000 round of May 2025. US envoy Jared Kushner described it as the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners of the war, and both sides confirmed the planned exchange. But it is not a ceasefire, and it is not a peace deal: the talks ended with no agreement on territory, security guarantees or a ceasefire, and the envoys flew on to Moscow to brief President Vladimir Putin, as Reuters reported.

What it does change is the proof that the humanitarian channel still works at scale. Exchanges have been the one area where Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly reached agreement even while the fighting continued, and the Abu Dhabi deal extends that record to the largest round yet. For the families of the roughly 5,700 people already brought home — and for those still waiting — the mechanics matter more than the diplomacy: lists, verification, a border crossing, and a bus ride home. Our full coverage of the talks is in our Abu Dhabi outcome report and our day-one analysis, and the background to Ukraine’s negotiating position is in our Budapest Memorandum explainer. The wider conflict is tracked on our conflict zones hub.

What this means for US/UK/EU readers

For readers in the United States, Britain and Europe, prisoner exchanges are the most human and most legible part of a war that otherwise moves in abstractions — front lines, sanctions packages, aid tranches. Three practical consequences follow. First, the Abu Dhabi deal, if it holds, will be the largest single release of the war, and it will dominate the humanitarian news cycle for the two to three weeks until the handover; expect the numbers to be contested until the buses actually cross. Second, the exchange track is now the working channel between Moscow and Kyiv, and its health is the best early indicator of whether the wider talks have any life in them — if the technical session on numbers stalls, the political track is stalling too. Third, the legal framework matters for Western policy: the Geneva rules on repatriation are the standard against which both sides’ conduct is judged, and they shape the war-crimes and accountability debates that run through European capitals and Washington.

There is also a direct human link. Western governments have nationals and dual nationals among the detained, and Western NGOs and the ICRC are the institutions families turn to when a relative goes missing. Understanding how the lists, the verification and the handover work is the difference between reading a headline number and knowing what it actually means.

What to watch next in the prisoner-exchange track

Four things to watch. First, the final numbers: Kushner said they would be settled on Thursday, November 12 — if the figure lands at or above 1,000 per side, the deal becomes the largest of the war; if it slips far below, the “biggest release” framing will need revising. Second, the date and the crossing point: TASS reported the exchange could take place within two to three weeks, and the location will signal which mediator is running the operation. Third, the Moscow meeting: what Witkoff and Kushner carry back from President Putin will show whether the exchange is a standalone humanitarian step or the first move in a wider negotiation. And fourth, the lists: watch for the ICRC’s role in verification, and for any reports of prisoners excluded from the lists — that is where disputes surface first.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a prisoner exchange take to arrange?
It varies widely. Some exchanges in the Russia–Ukraine war have taken weeks or months of negotiation across several parallel tracks, according to Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters. The political agreement can come quickly — the Abu Dhabi deal was reached in two days of talks — but the technical work of lists, verification and transport takes longer, and the handover itself was reported to be two to three weeks away.

Can a prisoner refuse to be exchanged?
During hostilities, exchanges are negotiated between the parties, and there is no formal consent procedure comparable to a criminal prisoner transfer. After hostilities end, repatriation under Article 118 of the Third Geneva Convention is mandatory — the detaining power must release its prisoners without delay, and the obligation does not depend on the other side doing the same.

What is the difference between a prisoner exchange and a prisoner transfer?
A wartime exchange releases prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions; the prisoner goes free. A criminal prisoner transfer moves a sentenced person to their home country to serve the rest of their sentence under a treaty such as the 1983 Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, and it requires a final judgment, the prisoner’s consent and the agreement of both states.

Who verifies the prisoner lists?
Each side draws up its own lists and the two sides check them against each other, with the ICRC acting as neutral intermediary. The ICRC visits detainees, can interview them without witnesses, and oversees the handover — but it does not decide who is released, and it can only work where the parties have agreed to give it access.

Does a prisoner swap mean the war is ending?
No. Exchanges have taken place throughout the Russia–Ukraine war while the fighting continued, and the Abu Dhabi deal produced no ceasefire or agreement on territory. A swap is a humanitarian step, not a peace agreement — though it can build the trust that makes wider talks possible.

Sources

• Reuters via Business Standard: Russia, Ukraine reach deal on prisoner swap, but trust gap holds back talks
• Al Jazeera: Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi end with prisoner exchange agreement
• ICRC: Access beyond front lines — Neutrality in conflict
• ICRC: Helping detainees — People deprived of liberty
• Kyiv Independent: Explained — How Ukraine negotiates prisoner of war swaps with Russia
• OHCHR: Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
• ICRC International Review: The updated ICRC Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention
• CGTN: Russia, Ukraine agree on prisoner swap, but no peace breakthrough
• Government of Canada: Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons
• Particle News: Russia and Ukraine Exchange 540 Captives in Belarus Border Swap