Russia and Ukraine exchanged more captured soldiers on Friday, the latest in a series of prisoner swaps agreed at peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month. Two rounds of peace talks in Istanbul have failed to result in a pause to the fighting.

The Ukrainian POWs exchanged on Thursday were sick or injured, according to Kyiv's coordinating council for POWs. The Russian POWs would also be sent for treatment and rehabilitation, Moscow's defence ministry said.

Ukraine has brought home another group of soldiers released from Russian captivity, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on June 19.

Since then, Russia and Ukraine have swapped dozens of prisoners of war, focusing on under-25s and the severely wounded and sick. There are hopes they could build into some of the biggest exchanges in the war that was triggered by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine said they exchanged an unspecified number of sick and wounded prisoners of war on Tuesday under an agreement reached at peace talks last week in Turkey. The handover took place after an initial swap of prisoners under the age of 25 was conducted on Monday.

Russians claim that there are almost no Russian prisoners of war left in Ukraine. However, this information does not correspond to reality, says Andrii Yusov, representative of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.