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What the late December 2024 events meant for security
Summary
A look back at two developments in the days before 2 January 2025: a prisoner swap brokered by the UAE and an airline's suspension of Russian routes.
What was the security picture on 2 January 2025? It was shaped by two developments from the final days of 2024, one involving prisoners of war and the other involving civil aviation.
On 30 December 2024, Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates. Ukraine said that many of those released by Russia were soldiers captured during the Siege of Mariupol in 2022.
The exchange took place against a backdrop that later accounts describe in grim terms. During the war, both Ukrainian and Russian or separatist prisoners of war have suffered several forms of abuse, including mistreatment, exposure to public curiosity, torture and even execution.
The airline suspension
A few days earlier, on 27 December 2024, Azerbaijan Airlines suspended flights to seven cities in Russia. The decision followed the crash of Flight 8243 on Wednesday, 25 December, amid allegations that the plane had been hit by a Russian surface-to-air missile.
The suspension showed how the effects of the war reached beyond Ukraine's borders and into the region's air links with Russia.
As of 2 January 2025, then, the two stories stood side by side: a negotiated release of soldiers, some held since the Mariupol siege, and an airline pulling back from Russian destinations after a crash linked by allegations to a missile.
