An exchange deception. Russia sent Ukraine ex‑convicts already due for deportation, instead of prisoners of war

Among the Ukrainians repatriated in a “1,000-for-1,000” prisoner exchange were former convicts already awaiting deportation in immigration detention centres; not a single fighter from the Azov Brigade was included. Mediazona has spoken with participants, relatives of prisoners of war, and lawyers defending Ukrainians in Russian courts about this and other aspects of the largest prisoner swap since the full-scale invasion began.

On May 16, during negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey, Russian and Ukrainian delegations agreed to a prisoner exchange based on a “1,000-for-1,000” formula. The exchange commenced on May 23 and occurred in three stages, with the parties transferring batches of 390, 307, and 303 persons over three consecutive days.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence reported that 880 prisoners of war and 120 civilians returned from Ukraine. These civilians are understood to include individuals convicted in Ukraine on collaboration charges; Russia’s human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, called them “political prisoners”. Ukraine also transferred 20 elderly residents from Russia’s Kursk region, border areas of which had been under Ukrainian military occupation for several months.

Reports also indicate that Russia transferred 52 marines to Ukraine from the 36th Marine Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. These marines had defended the city of Mariupol and were captured in March 2022.

However, this exchange, the largest since the full-scale war began, has drawn criticism in both Russia and Ukraine.

Colonel Denys Prokopenko, a commander in the Azov Brigade, wrote that not a single Azov member featured on the exchange lists, labelling it a “disgrace” for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukrainian journalists reported that Russia handed over a defector to Kyiv who had voluntarily sided with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in 2021. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War commented on the matter: “We could not influence the lists. Russia handed over those it was prepared to hand over, and Ukraine did likewise.”

Anastasia Kashevarova, a prominent pro-war Russian milblogger, agrees: “This exchange was fast-tracked, virtually without bargaining or approvals.”

Exchange Instead of Deportation

Mediazona has found that some Ukrainian civilians in the exchange were individuals convicted of criminal offences in Russia. After serving their sentences, they were unable to return home due to the war. In peacetime, they could have travelled to Ukraine or would have faced deportation. Instead, Russian authorities have held them for years in “centres for foreign nationals” (TsVSIGs). This was the situation for two men who spoke to Mediazona.

Serhiy Rasputnyi, 48, served a 13-year sentence for murder. Upon his release from prison in October 2024, he was immediately transferred to a detention centre in Tambov. According to Rasputnyi, he and other Ukrainians there were persistently pressured to enlist in the war, being told it was their only way out of detention.

“You won’t be leaving here. You have two options: either go to war, or you’ll be stuck here indefinitely,” Rasputnyi recalls Russian security officials telling them.

Four months later, he was moved to the Tambov TsVSIG. Rasputnyi explains that, prior to this, the centre’s administration had, for unclear reasons, not been admitting Ukrainians. He spent a further four months there. Throughout this period, he, along with other Ukrainians and their relatives, appealed to various authorities to be included on exchange lists, but they received no responses.

On May 21, the Ukrainians were unexpectedly told to prepare for transfer. They were transported by bus to the infamous Sakharovo TsVSIG near Moscow, and subsequently to Belarus. By May 23, they were in Ukraine.

“It was quite surreal how they suddenly arranged our transfer,” says Rasputnyi. “We had no inkling how it came about. We somehow ended up on the lists. We simply didn’t know, didn’t expect it in the slightest.”

From what he observed, even the heads of the TsVSIGs were kept in the dark about the details. “Only Moscow holds all the information, because Moscow issues the directives,” he concludes.

Rasputnyi adds that, to his knowledge, Ukrainians awaiting deportation had been returned to their homeland during previous exchanges. However, he says they were not considered part of the formal exchange quota and were not officially counted among those swapped.

“They exchange soldiers, say 300 for 300. Then, additionally, they might expel about 40 Ukrainians, for example, and also allow a specific group through—such as civilians from the Kursk region whom Ukraine returns to Russia after they were displaced from occupied areas,” he says, describing the mechanism.

This time, however, former prisoners from the TsVSIG were, for some reason, included among the civilians designated for exchange. According to Rasputnyi, there were just over 40 people on his bus: “A couple of them were facing expulsion while the rest were being deported.”

When speaking to Mediazona, Rasputnyi was in a hospital in Kyiv. “Now, it’s rehabilitation, a process of reintegration, and getting documents restored because many of us don’t have them, or they’ve expired. We’re undergoing tests and various medical checks,” he said.

Maksym Melnykov spent about eight months in Tambov. Before that, he had served seven years in a Russian prison for drug possession. The exchange was also a surprise for Melnykov.

“They came a day before and said, ‘You’re leaving tomorrow.’ We didn’t know where—maybe to Georgia, or maybe home. Nobody knew anything. We were just told to be packed,” Melnykov says.

Melnykov believes that he and his fellow detainees at the TsVSIG “miraculously got into the exchange, with God’s help.” He says he is still in shock and only beginning to adjust to freedom after his long detention.

He adds that not all the Ukrainians he and Rasputnyi met at the Tambov TsVSIG were exchanged. The criteria for how the lists were compiled remain unclear.

Neither of the men Mediazona interviewed saw any Ukrainian prisoners from the occupied territories during their exchange. The previous day, Agentstvo, an independent Russian outlet, reported that civilian participants in the exchange included many “former Ukrainian convicts who were transferred to Russia after the annexation [of Ukrainian territories].”

“We were mixed in with everyone, and I didn’t hear from anyone that such individuals were there,” Rasputnyi says.

“You Can Never Find Out Who Gets on the Lists”

Lawyers for prisoners of war and Ukrainian civilians being tried in Russia for resisting the occupation say they are disappointed with the outcome of the exchange.

“This large ‘thousand-for-a-thousand’ exchange was, in principle, supposed to prioritise those who truly need it, those who have effectively been in captivity for a long time,” says lawyer Viktoria Belova.

Other people Mediazona spoke to point to the disproportionately small number of civilians on the exchange lists (only 120 compared to 880 prisoners of war).

“I believe that if countries are guided by humanitarian principles, then non-combatants, the sick, and women should be prioritised for exchange—essentially, those who cannot contribute to the continuation of the conflict,” says lawyer Roman Nikolaev.

Lawyer Belova shares similar sentiments. “Of course, I am very happy for those who are included in this exchange. But I must say, as a lawyer representing Ukrainian women, I am disappointed. Some have been waiting for an exchange for seven years, and it appears their wait will be much longer, though they haven’t lost hope and trust they aren’t forgotten. I have clients whose young children are waiting for them at home, children who have essentially grown up without their mothers. I don’t even know what to tell them, or how to explain that this exchange seemingly only involved military personnel from the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” she admits.

Mediazona’s interviewees note that individuals detained in the territories of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics—and there are many such cases—are never included in exchanges. Lawyer Alisa Alekseeva offers an explanation: Russia, she says, “believes that if it has annexed a territory, it has also annexed its citizens.” This means that from the Russian state’s perspective, Ukrainians are considered Russian citizens, even if they resisted annexation.

Regarding prisoners of war, lawyer Nikolaev points out that not one Azov fighter was included in the latest exchange. Many have been detained for over three years and subjected to torture. “My client is on crutches as a result of interrogation methods used in Donetsk. We had hoped that individuals like him, who have been held in Russian captivity for such an extended period, would finally be included in an exchange,” the lawyer says.

According to Ukrainian Oleksandr Protsenko, he has heard from people involved in organising exchanges that Russia is unwilling to release actual Azov members and those it considers to be Azov members.

Oleksandr’s father served as a driver at an Azov base but resigned several years before the full-scale war began. After the capture of Mariupol, he was detained, beaten, held without contact in Donetsk for several months, and then tried in Rostov-on-Don on terrorism charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The situation is complicated because the mechanism for exchanging civilians is poorly defined in both Ukraine and Russia, Protsenko reflects. “In Ukraine, we have the term tsyvilnyi polonenyi, meaning civilian captive. It’s an informal term without a precise legal definition, and the same government services handle all such cases [whether they involve POWs or civilian hostages]. So, legally speaking, my father is treated much like a prisoner of war,” Oleksandr explains.

He notes a widespread belief among Ukrainians that the authorities are not doing enough to secure the return of prisoners. However, assessing the reality of these efforts is difficult. Regarding the Azov members, Oleksandr believes Russia might indeed be delaying their exchange as a form of “blackmail, aiming to trade them for someone more significant or to extract concessions.”

“Russians understand perfectly well that this can cause disagreements in Ukrainian society. People will, well… Rebel is too strong a word, but there will be discontent,” he says.

However, Mediazona’s interviewees emphasise that there is a precedent for Russia being willing to exchange “anyone” when it suits its purposes.

“When there is political will, they release everyone, by and large,” concludes lawyer Alekseeva. For instance, in September 2022, Russia handed over Azov commanders to Turkey; some time later, they returned to Ukraine.

Lawyers highlight the opacity surrounding the entire exchange process. In Ukraine, the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which answers to the Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, is responsible for organising exchanges. Russia, however, has no officially designated equivalent institution.

Lawyer Ekaterina Frolova recounts her attempts to discover who compiles the exchange lists, undertaken at the request of her Ukrainian client. She sent inquiries to various government departments. The Human Rights Commissioner advised contacting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while the Ministry of Defence directed her to the Federal Penitentiary Service, because Frolova’s client had already been convicted. “Eventually, they just started forwarding his requests from one department to another,” the lawyer says.

Lawyer Yaroslav Sobolev suggests that decisions are made by a commission comprising representatives from the Ministry of Defence, the presidential administration, and counterintelligence. Lawyer Alekseeva is more categorical: “On their side, it’s the SBU, [Ukraine’s security service]; on this side, it’s the FSB [Russia’s security service] that calls all the shots. Who actually gets on the lists, how it’s all coordinated—you can never find that out.”

By Olga Romashova, with Elena Dymova and Anna Pavlova

Editor: Dmitry Tkachev