Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Budanov says a major wave of the Ukraine-Russia prisoner exchange could take place as early as next week.
Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov said on Sept. 27, 2026, that a new large-scale prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia is being prepared and could take place as early as next week. According to him, the process is currently in its final stage of coordination. Volunteers Support Ukraine checks statements like this against official sources every day before including them in its news roundup.
Kyrylo Budanov, who took over as Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine at the start of January 2026 after years leading the Main Directorate of Intelligence, told the outlet Novyny.LIVE that a new prisoner exchange should happen "very quickly, in the near future" — roughly within the coming week. He did not give an exact date or the number of people expected to return, explaining that details are still being finalized as part of the negotiations. A portrait of Budanov himself appears as this article's cover photo. Volunteers Support Ukraine notes that announcements like this one usually precede the actual exchange by only a few days, so the coming week may bring good news for hundreds of families.
Previous exchanges in 2026 — including the large-scale "500 for 500" swap in March — have each turned into some of the genuinely brightest days of this war: buses carrying defenders wrapped in Ukrainian flags, crowds of relatives waiting at the border, embraces after months or years without any word on a loved one's fate. The photos above and below are from one such previous exchange and capture what the word "exchange" actually means for thousands of Ukrainian families. Volunteers Support Ukraine believes every such story deserves to be told as widely as possible.
According to the Main Directorate of Intelligence, as of early September 2026, 9,726 Ukrainian citizens had been brought home through 77 exchanges and other release efforts. In April, Budanov announced preparations for another exchange shortly after 182 people were returned in the 72nd swap, including 175 servicemembers and seven civilians. Every new announcement, including the one made on Sept. 27, signals that the work of freeing people continues without pause, despite how difficult negotiating with the aggressor state remains.
Volunteers Support Ukraine continues to help people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources and capacity allow, and sees it as its duty to report every step that brings Ukrainians closer to home — from freeing prisoners of war to returning children and civilians from occupation. The organization encourages readers to follow official statements from the Coordination Headquarters and not to trust unverified rumors about exchange dates or lists that often circulate on social media before anything is officially confirmed.
