Prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine under way
A prisoner exchange is under way between Russia and Ukraine, governments in Moscow and Kyiv have confirmed.Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said the exchange would unfold "in several stages" over the coming days, adding that the wounded, seriously wounded and soldiers under 25 were being returned.Writing on Telegram, Zelensky said: "The process is quite complicated, there are many sensitive details, negotiations continue virtually every day."Russia said a "similar number" of prisoners of war had been returned to Ukraine, though neither side provided an exact figure for how many people had been exchanged.
Russia's defence ministry said "the first group of Russian servicemen under the age of 25 were returned from the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime" following an agreement reached between the warring countries last week during talks in Turkey.As with past exchanges, Moscow said the exchanged Russian soldiers were receiving psychological and medical assistance in Belarus. On the Ukrainian side, relatives of prisoners of war and the missing gathered in the Chernihiv region, close to the border with Belarus, to greet the released prisoners and, in many cases, seek news of others still in captivity.Last week, Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of disrupting the planned repatriation of the bodies of dead soldiers. In late May, Russia and Ukraine each handed over 390 soldiers and civilians in the biggest prisoner exchange since Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022. Meanwhile, war continued overnight, with Moscow launching a record 479 drones at Ukraine, including on the western region of Rivne that had been largely spared from attacks.Russia's defence ministry said it had targeted Rivne's Dubno base and described this as "one of the retaliatory strikes" in response to Ukraine's audacious drone attacks on Russian airfields on 1 June.The overnight Russian launches caused damage in several Ukrainian regions but there were no reports of casualties.Russia has recently escalated its attacks on Ukraine, with each week bringing a new record of drones fired at the country. For its part, Kyiv said it attacked another Russian airbase in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which lies 400 miles from the Ukrainian border.Ukraine said the base houses planes that launch hypersonic missiles and that it had damaged "two units of enemy aircraft".It also targeted an electronics factory that Kyiv says manufactures equipment to guide drones and aerial bombs. Video shows one of the explosions caused by an attack drone, and a large fire at the plant. Production there has been suspended.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
32 minutes ago
- Sky News
Israel-Iran live: Iranian nuclear site and notorious jail 'bombed by Israel' - as supreme leader asks Putin for help
Israel's military has targeted Iran's Fordow nuclear site a day after the US bombed the facility, while also blowing the doors off of a notorious Iranian prison. Iran has asked Russia for help, while vowing revenge against the US. Follow the latest and listen to The World podcast below.
The Independent
33 minutes ago
- The Independent
A Ukrainian journalist is released from Russian custody in occupied Crimea
Ukrainian Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko was released Sunday after more than four years in Russian custody in Crimea, according to RFE/RL. Yesypenko was arrested and jailed on March 10, 2021, in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, on suspicion of gathering intelligence for Ukraine, a charge he denied. In February 2022, a Russian-installed court in Crimea sentenced the dual Russian-Ukrainian citizen to six years on espionage charges that he, his employer and rights groups said were fabricated. Months later, he was also charged with possessing explosives — a claim he denies. Prosecutors later acknowledged the grenade found in his car did not bear his fingerprints. The top Moscow-controlled court in Crimea later reduced Yesypenko's sentence to five years. During his trial, he testified that he was tortured with electric shocks to extract a false confession. 'For more than four years, Vlad was arbitrarily punished for a crime he did not commit. He paid too high of a price for reporting the truth about what was taking place inside Russia-occupied Crimea,' RFE/RL chief executive Stephen Capus said, adding that Yesypenko had been 'tortured, physically and psychologically.' Capus thanked the U.S. and Ukrainian governments for 'working with us to ensure that Vlad's unjust detention was not prolonged.' In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak thanked everyone who helped secure Yesypenko's release. He was freed shortly after longtime RFE/RL correspondent Ihar Karnei was released from prison in Belarus, following a rare visit by a senior U.S. official.
The Independent
37 minutes ago
- The Independent
Donald Trump's gamble in Iran is bad news for the ‘Axis of Autocracies'
When the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Moscow to coordinate Tehran's response to the massive US strikes on nuclear facilities, he met not with his opposite number Sergei Lavrov, but Vladimir Putin himself. That, in itself, speaks volumes about how wide-ranging the repercussions of Donald Trump's military intervention might be. The dramatic escalation and direct involvement of America in Iran, coupled with the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel, and Trump talking openly of regime change, puts the Russian leader in a difficult position. He was compelled to condemn the US bombing raid, as his own ordnance was falling on civilian targets in Ukraine. Whatever requests Araghchi makes of Moscow, it will have multiple competing interests and moves to consider before committing to anything beyond rhetoric. Tehran and Moscow have what might be best described as an asymmetrical relationship. Ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran has been a critical friend. Much of Putin's early success in the three-year conflict was down to Iran providing Russia with cheap weapons, including thousands of Shahed drones, which were critical in its airstrikes on Ukraine. Sources in Kyiv are cautiously optimistic that Iran may cease sending weapons to Russia, as they may be needed in its fight against Israel. It could mean North Korea is leaned on to supply even more manpower and missiles, strengthening Putin's dependence on Pyongyang. While Putin has publicly condemned the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, he knows better than almost any other world leader that talk is cheap. He has sat and listened to virtually every Western nation condemn his war on Ukraine for over three years. Without hard power to back up the words, Putin has been free to carry on with his assault on a sovereign nation. It is probably fair to assume that the Kremlin is currently in something of a holding pattern, while it watches how things develop between the US and Iran. A Western security official told me this morning that, while they expected no tangible or direct Russian support for Iran any time soon, they also feared that the Trump administration lacked 'the diplomatic follow-up that could actually make the strikes a long-term success'. Naturally, there are multiple ways the coming days could play out, ranging from full-throated American support for immediate regime change to a sudden, shock diplomatic breakthrough that ends fighting and sees an agreement on Iran's nuclear programme. More likely, my security source says, is that it will fall somewhere in the middle, where fighting continues and Trump's levels of interest become the determining factor in how long this all drags out. That's where things get complicated. Much has been made of the new Axis of Autocracies: Iran, Russia, China and North Korea. Diplomats and intelligence officials have repeatedly described this as a marriage of convenience, rather than a traditional alliance. While it's true that there is no single unifying ideology between these four other than a hatred of the US-led world order, that has been enough for them to aid one another in their geopolitical disputes, whether that's through economic support, direct military support, or, in the case of North Korea, sending troops to fight for Russia. It might be that we live in an age where traditional alliances of shared values and ideologies – especially ones led by a disruptor like Trump – are less stable than a collection of self-interested autocrats who simply have a common enemy. China and Russia will almost certainly want the situation in Iran to stabilise as soon as possible. Their sense of self-preservation and aversion to public discussions of regime change will take precedence over any desire to help a friend in need. This might be why the US has called on China, which imports more oil from Iran than any other nation, to pressure Iran to keep open the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route, to avoid a global economic crisis. America likely assumes that, for the time being, stability and the ability to leverage power matters more to China than supporting Iran. But the muddier it all becomes, that calculation might change. If Trump doesn't have the diplomatic nous to capitalise on his airstrikes, his historic behaviour suggests there is every chance his Maga instincts will see him withdraw and leave others to clear up after him. It could be that Iran, Russia, China and North Korea are more than happy to mop up the mess and twist world events to their own advantage.
