The exchange will see 1,000 POWs from both sides return home, in a deal agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on May 16, the first such talks between Moscow and Kyiv since 2022.

Russia and Ukraine were set to take part in a major prisoner swap on Friday, described as the biggest since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted to social media Thursday that the prisoner swap "was perhaps the only tangible result of the meeting in Turkey."