“The Russians now have approximately 7 000 Ukrainian prisoners of war, while Ukraine has over 4 000 Russians.” Key points from Zelenskyʼs press conference

President Volodymyr Zelensky held a press conference on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The topics were the progress of the negotiations, security guarantees from Western partners, and prisoner exchanges.

Negotiations with the US, Russia and security guarantees

This evening, Zelensky will meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and then have a call with US negotiators — Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

The Russians unexpectedly changed the leader of their negotiating team (to Putinʼs aide Volodymyr Medinsky) — Zelensky thinks they want to delay the decision. It is important to work with the Americans to prevent this from happening.

The Americans are openly saying that if Ukraine withdraws its troops from Donbas as soon as possible, then peace will come as soon as possible, because these are guarantees from Russia. Ukraineʼs position is that if we give Putin the opportunity to feel this victory, we donʼt know what he will do next.

Today, during a meeting with American senators, the Ukrainian team stated that Ukraine wants to have guarantees longer than the 15 years that are currently being offered, for 20+, 30+ years, which the Americans will be ready for. This is necessary for foreign business and investment.

Ukraine will discuss the issue of an energy truce, but it is not possible to talk about it publicly yet.

Prisoner of war exchanges

The Russians currently have approximately 7 000 Ukrainian prisoners of war, while Ukraine has over 4 000 Russians. Ukraine is ready for an all-for-all exchange and other formats of exchanges: a thousand for a thousand, a hundred for a hundred, etc.

“Flamingo” missiles

We donʼt have many “Flamingo” missiles. But we got results — a few days ago we hit the “Oreshnik” base. Now itʼs important to increase the number. One large production line was destroyed by the Russians, it has already been relocated.

Cooperation with European partners

There are a lot of Ukrainians in Poland and Germany. And European countries will raise the question of whether they can afford to financially support them — we need to be in dialogue with our partners.

The issue of German long-range TAURUS missiles is not closed, but there is no solution yet. "I choose what we can get right now."

Regarding the PURL initiative: there are 3-5 countries that pay for everyone. They have participated three times already, and some others have only participated once. They are asking for help because they cannot pay for everyone.

• The PURL mechanism was developed by NATO and the United States in August 2025. It allows allies to finance the purchase of American weapons, military equipment and ammunition for Ukraine through joint contributions.
• Ukraine forms a list of needs for weapons and ammunition, it is agreed at the NATO level, after which the purchase takes place at the expense of partners. As of the end of December, partnersʼ contributions to the program reached $4.18 billion.

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