Latest news with #Зеленский
Arab News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Russia's Putin calls for quick development of drone forces
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that drones had played a major role in the conflict in Ukraine and called for the rapid development and deployment of separate drone forces within the military. 'We are currently creating unmanned systems troops as a separate branch of the military and we need to ensure their rapid and high-quality deployment and development,' Russian news agencies quoted him as saying at a meeting on arms development. Drones have played a leading role for both sides in the more than three-year-old conflict pitting Moscow against Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has since the outbreak of the war in February 2022 stressed the importance of developing a domestic drone development and production industry. Putin told the second day of the gathering that Russia was well aware how Ukraine was dealing with the issue. 'But on the whole, I do not believe we are lagging behind on anything,' he was quoted as saying. 'More to the point, it seems to me we are bringing together good experience with a view to creating just such forces.' Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov proposed the creation of a drone force late last year, setting a target date of the third quarter of 2025. Putin also stressed developing air defenses, which he said had destroyed more than 80,000 targets during the conflict that Russia still calls a special military operation. 'In this respect, a new state armaments program must ensure the construction of a versatile air defense system capable of operating in any circumstances and efficiently striking air attack weapons, regardless of their type,' he said. On the opening day of the meeting, Putin called for due attention to be paid to the nuclear triad of land-based, sea-based and aircraft-launched weapons.
BreakingNews.ie
11-06-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Russian attacks kill three as drones hit Kharkiv and other parts of Ukraine
Russian forces launched a new drone assault across Ukraine overnight on Wednesday, killing three people and wounding 64 others, Ukrainian officials said. One of the hardest-hit areas was the city of Kharkiv in north-eastern Ukraine, where 17 attack drones struck two residential districts, mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Advertisement Emergency crews, municipal workers and volunteers worked through the night to extinguish fires, rescue residents from burning homes, and restore gas, electricity and water services. 'Those are ordinary sites of peaceful life — those that should never be targeted,' Mr Terekhov wrote on Telegram. Three people were confirmed killed, according to Kharkiv regional head Oleh Syniehubov. In a statement, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that 64 people had been wounded and re-iterated his calls for greater international pressure on Moscow. Advertisement 'Every new day now brings new vile Russian attacks, and almost every strike is telling,' he said. 'We must not be afraid or postpone new decisions that could make things more difficult for Russia. Without this, they will not engage in genuine diplomacy. And this depends primarily on the United States and other world leaders. Everyone who has called for an end to the killings and for diplomacy must act.' Kharkiv has been frequently targeted in recent months as Russia launched repeated large-scale drone and missile attacks on civilian infrastructure. Moscow's forces have launched waves of drones and missiles in recent days, with a record bombardment of almost 500 drones on Monday and a wave of 315 drones and seven missiles overnight on Tuesday. Advertisement The attacks come despite discussions of a potential ceasefire in the war. The two sides traded memorandums at direct peace talks in Istanbul on June 2 that set out conditions. However, the inclusion of clauses that both sides see as non-starters make any quick deal unlikely. Wednesday's strikes also caused widespread destruction in Kharkiv's Slobidskyi and Osnovianskyi districts, hitting apartment buildings, private homes, playgrounds, industrial sites and public transportation. Images from the scene published by Ukraine's Emergency Service on Telegram showed burning apartments, shattered windows and firefighters battling the blaze. Advertisement 'We stand strong. We help one another. And we will endure,' Mr Terekhov said. 'Kharkiv is Ukraine. And it cannot be broken.' Ukraine's air force said that 85 attack and decoy drones were fired over the country overnight. Air defence systems intercepted 40 of the drones, while nine more failed to reach their targets without causing damage. In other developments, Russia has returned 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers in line with an agreement reached during the talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian delegations. Advertisement Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for Treatment of Prisoners of War said that the bodies came from Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, as well as Russia's Kursk region where Ukrainian forces waged an incursion. It said that authorities would work to determine their identities as quickly as possible.
Globe and Mail
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Russia accuses Ukraine of postponing exchange of dead soldiers
Russian officials said Sunday that Moscow is still awaiting official confirmation from Ukraine that a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action will take place, reiterating allegations that Kyiv had postponed the swap. On the front line in the war, Russia said that it had pushed into Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region. Russian state media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a representative of the Russian negotiating group, as saying that Russia delivered the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to the exchange site at the border and is waiting for confirmation from Ukraine, but that there were 'signals' that the process of transferring the bodies would be postponed until next week. Citing Zorin on her Telegram channel, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asked whether it was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's 'personal decision not to take the bodies of the Ukrainians' or whether 'someone from NATO prohibited it.' Russia and Ukraine each accused the other on Saturday of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, which was agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress toward ending the war. Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, led the Russian delegation. Medinsky said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram post on Saturday, he said that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed exchange site at the border when the news came. In response, Ukraine said that Russia was playing 'dirty games' and manipulating facts. Russian aerial barrage targets Ukraine's Kharkiv and kills at least 3 According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement on Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn't correspond to agreements reached on Monday. It wasn't immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting claims. In other developments, Russia's Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces had reached the western edge of the Donetsk region, one of the four provinces Russia illegally annexed in 2022, and that troops were 'developing the offensive' in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. This would be the first time Russian troops had pushed into the region in the more than three-year-old war. Ukraine didn't immediately respond to the claim, and The Associated Press couldn't immediately verify it. Russia's advance would mark a significant setback for Ukraine's already stretched forces as peace talks remain stalled and Russian troops have made incremental gains elsewhere. One person was killed and another seriously wounded in Russian aerial strikes on the eastern Ukrainian Kharkiv region. These strikes came after Russian attacks targeted the regional capital, also called Kharkiv, on Saturday. Regional police in Kharkiv said on Sunday that the death toll from Saturday's attacks had increased to six people. More than two dozen others were wounded. Russia fired a total of 49 exploding drones and decoys and three missiles overnight, Ukraine's air force said Sunday. Forty drones were shot down or electronically jammed. Russia's defense ministry said that its forces shot down 61 Ukrainian drones overnight, including near the capital. Five people were wounded Sunday in a Ukrainian drone attack on a parking lot in Russia's Belgorod region, according to regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. Two people were wounded when a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire at a chemical plant in the Tula region, local authorities said. Russian authorities said early Sunday that Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports, two international airports serving Moscow, temporarily suspended flights because of a Ukrainian drone attack. Later in the day, Domodedovo halted flights temporarily for a second time, along with Zhukovsky airport.
Asharq Al-Awsat
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Russia Awaits Ukraine's Confirmation on Planned Exchange of Dead Fighters, Officials Say
Russian officials said Sunday that Moscow is still awaiting official confirmation from Ukraine that a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action will take place, reiterating allegations that Kyiv had postponed the swap. On the front line in the war, Russia said that it had pushed into Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region. Russian state media quoted Lt. Gen. Alexander Zorin, a representative of the Russian negotiating group, as saying that Russia delivered the first batch of 1,212 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to the exchange site at the border and is waiting for confirmation from Ukraine, but that there were 'signals' that the process of transferring the bodies would be postponed until next week, The AP news reported. Citing Zorin on her Telegram channel, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova asked whether it was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's 'personal decision not to take the bodies of the Ukrainians' or whether 'someone from NATO prohibited it." Russia and Ukraine each accused the other on Saturday of endangering plans to swap 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action, which was agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress toward ending the war. Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, led the Russian delegation. Medinsky said that Kyiv called a last-minute halt to an imminent swap. In a Telegram post on Saturday, he said that refrigerated trucks carrying more than 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian troops from Russia had already reached the agreed exchange site at the border when the news came. In response, Ukraine said that Russia was playing 'dirty games' and manipulating facts. According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement on Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn't correspond to agreements reached on Monday.
Irish Times
02-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Russia-Ukraine fighting steps up ahead of talks in Turkey
Russian and Ukrainian officials are due to sit down on Monday in the Turkish city of Istanbul for their second round of direct peace talks since 2022. The two sides are still far apart on how to end the war, however, and the fighting is stepping up. Russia launched deadly attacks across Ukraine before the Istanbul talks. Russian shelling and air attacks killed five people outside the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, while a drone attack on the northeast region of Sumy injured at least six people early on Monday, including two children, officials said. READ MORE The Kremlin launched 472 drones at Ukraine, Ukraine's air force said, the highest nightly total of the war. On Sunday, Ukraine launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war, targeting Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and other military bases. A Ukrainian intelligence official said 40 Russian warplanes were struck in a 'large-scale' drone attack. Their first round of talks on May 16th yielded the biggest prisoner swap of the war but no sign of peace – or even a ceasefire as both sides merely set out their own opening negotiating positions. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said defence minister Rustem Umerov would meet Russian officials in Istanbul for the second round of talks. The Russian delegation is headed by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, who after the first round invoked French general and statesman Napoleon Bonaparte to assert that war and negotiations should always be conducted at the same time. US president Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace, but so far they have not done so, and the White House has repeatedly warned the United States will 'walk away' from the war if the two sides fail to reach a peace deal. The idea of direct talks was first proposed by president Vladimir Putin after Ukraine and European powers demanded that he agree to a ceasefire which the Kremlin dismissed. Mr Putin said Russia would draft a memorandum setting out the broad contours of a possible peace accord and only then discuss a ceasefire. Kyiv said over the weekend it was still waiting for draft memorandum from the Russian side. Mr Medinsky, the lead Kremlin negotiator, said on Sunday that Moscow had received a Ukraine's draft memorandum and told Russia's RIA news agency the Kremlin would react to it on Monday. According to Trump envoy Keith Kellogg, the two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, though it is clear that after three years of war Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart. Mr Kellogg has indicated that the US will be involved in the talks and that even representatives from Britain, France and Germany will be too, though it was not clear at what level the United States would be represented. In June last year, Mr Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its Nato ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia. Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters. According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine's military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and reparations for Ukraine. The document also stated that the current location of the front line will be the starting point for negotiations about territory. Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100sq/km, about the same size as the US state of Ohio. Mr Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022. Mr Trump has called the Russian leader 'crazy' and berated Mr Zelenskiy in public in the Oval Office, but the US president has also said that he thinks peace is achievable and that if Mr Putin delays then he could impose tough sanctions on Russia. – Reuters
