Russia awaits Ukraine's confirmation on a planned exchange of dead fighters, officials say
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.'
Ukrainian authorities said plans agreed upon during direct talks in Istanbul on Monday were proceeding accordingly, despite what Ukraine's intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, called Russian attempts to 'unilaterally dictate the parameters of the exchange process.'
'We are carefully adhering to the agreements reached in Istanbul. Who, when and how to exchange should not be someone's sole decision. Careful preparation is ongoing. Pressure and manipulation are unacceptable here,' he said in a statement on Telegram on Sunday.
'The start of repatriation activities based on the results of the negotiations in Istanbul is scheduled for next week, as authorized persons were informed about on Tuesday,' the statement said. 'Everything is moving according to plan, despite the enemy's dirty information game.'
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 the talks in Istanbul, which 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.
According to the main Ukrainian authority dealing with such swaps, no date had been set for repatriating the bodies. In a statement Saturday, the agency also accused Russia of submitting lists of prisoners of war for repatriation that didn't correspond to agreements reached 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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
20 minutes ago
- The Hill
On the front lines in eastern Ukraine, peace feels far away
DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — In a dugout where each nearby blast sends dirt raining from the ceiling and the black plastic lining the walls slipping down, Ukrainian soldiers say peace talks feel distant and unlikely to end the war. Explosions from Russian weapons — from glide bombs to artillery shells — thunder regularly overhead, keeping them underground except when they fire the M777 howitzer buried near their trench. Nothing on the Eastern Front suggests the war could end soon. Diplomatic peace efforts feel so far removed from the battlefield that many soldiers doubt they can bring results. Their skepticism is rooted in months of what they see as broken U.S. promises to end the war quickly. Recent suggestions by U.S. President Donald Trump that there will be some ' swapping of territories' — as well as media reports that it would involve Ukrainian troops leaving the Donetsk region where they have fought for years defending every inch of land — have stirred confusion and rejection among the soldiers. Few believe the current talks can end the war. More likely, they say, is a brief pause in hostilities before Russia resumes the assault with greater force. 'At minimum, the result would be to stop active fighting — that would be the first sign of some kind of settlement,' said soldier Dmytro Loviniukov of the 148th Brigade. 'Right now, that's not happening. And while these talks are taking place, they (the Russians) are only strengthening their positions on the front line.' Long war, no relief On one artillery position, talk often turns to home. Many Ukrainian soldiers joined the army in the first days of the full-scale invasion, leaving behind civilian jobs. Some thought they would serve only briefly. Others didn't think about the future at all — because at that moment, it didn't exist. In the years since, many have been killed. Those who survived are in their fourth year of a grueling war, far removed from the civilian lives they once knew. With mobilization faltering and the war dragging on far longer than expected, there is no one to replace them as the Ukrainian army struggles with recruiting new people. The army cannot also demobilize those who serve without risking the collapse of the front. That is why soldiers wait for even the possibility of a pause in hostilities. When direct talks between Russia and Ukraine were held in Istanbul in May, the soldiers from 148th brigade read the news with cautious hope, said a soldier with the call sign Bronson, who once worked as a tattoo artist. Months later, hope has been replaced with dark humor. On the eve of a deadline that U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly gave Russia's Vladimir Putin — one that has since vanished from the agenda amid talk of a meeting in Alaska — the Russian fire roared every minute for hours. Soldiers joked that the shelling was because the deadline was 'running out.' 'We are on our land. We have no way back,' said the commander of the artillery group, Dmytro Loviniukov. 'We stand here because there is no choice. No one else will come here to defend us.' Training for what's ahead Dozens of kilometers from Zaporizhzhia region, north to the Donetsk area, heavy fighting grinds on toward Pokrovsk — now the epicenter of fighting. Once home to about 60,000 people, the city has been under sustained Russian assault for months. The Russians have formed a pocket around Pokrovsk, though Ukrainian troops still hold the city and street fighting has yet to begin. Reports of Russian saboteurs entering the city started to appear almost daily, but the military says those groups have been neutralized. Ukrainian soldiers of the Spartan brigade push through drills with full intensity, honing their skills for the battlefield in the Pokrovsk area. Everything at the training range, only 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the front, is designed to mirror real combat conditions — even the terrain. A thin strip of forest breaks up the vast fields of blooming sunflowers stretching into the distance until the next tree line appears. One of the soldiers training there is a 35-year-old with the call sign Komrad, who joined the military only recently. He says he has no illusions that the war will end soon. 'My motivation is that there is simply no way back,' he said. 'If you are in the military, you have to fight. If we're here, we need to cover our brothers in arms.' Truce doesn't mean peace For Serhii Filimonov, commander of the 'Da Vinci Wolves' battalion of the 59th brigade, the war's end is nowhere in sight, and current news doesn't influence the ongoing struggle to find enough resources to equip the unit that is fighting around Pokrovsk. 'We are preparing for a long war. We have no illusions that Russia will stop,' he said, speaking at his field command post. 'There may be a ceasefire, but there will be no peace.' Filimonov dismisses recent talk of exchanging territory or signing agreements as temporary fixes at best. 'Russia will not abandon its goal of capturing all of Ukraine,' he said. 'They will attack again. The big question is what security guarantees we get — and how we hit pause.' A soldier with the call sign Mirche from the 68th brigade said that whenever there is a new round of talks, the hostilities intensify around Pokrovsk — Russia's key priority during this summer's campaign. Whenever peace talks begin, 'things on the front get terrifying,' he said. ___
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
On the front lines in eastern Ukraine, peace feels far away
DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — In a dugout where each nearby blast sends dirt raining from the ceiling and the black plastic lining the walls slipping down, Ukrainian soldiers say peace talks feel distant and unlikely to end the war. Explosions from Russian weapons — from glide bombs to artillery shells — thunder regularly overhead, keeping them underground except when they fire the M777 howitzer buried near their trench. Nothing on the Eastern Front suggests the war could end soon. Diplomatic peace efforts feel so far removed from the battlefield that many soldiers doubt they can bring results. Their skepticism is rooted in months of what they see as broken U.S. promises to end the war quickly. Recent suggestions by U.S. President Donald Trump that there will be some " swapping of territories' — as well as media reports that it would involve Ukrainian troops leaving the Donetsk region where they have fought for years defending every inch of land — have stirred confusion and rejection among the soldiers. Few believe the current talks can end the war. More likely, they say, is a brief pause in hostilities before Russia resumes the assault with greater force. 'At minimum, the result would be to stop active fighting — that would be the first sign of some kind of settlement,' said soldier Dmytro Loviniukov of the 148th Brigade. 'Right now, that's not happening. And while these talks are taking place, they (the Russians) are only strengthening their positions on the front line.' Long war, no relief On one artillery position, talk often turns to home. Many Ukrainian soldiers joined the army in the first days of the full-scale invasion, leaving behind civilian jobs. Some thought they would serve only briefly. Others didn't think about the future at all — because at that moment, it didn't exist. In the years since, many have been killed. Those who survived are in their fourth year of a grueling war, far removed from the civilian lives they once knew. With mobilization faltering and the war dragging on far longer than expected, there is no one to replace them as the Ukrainian army struggles with recruiting new people. The army cannot also demobilize those who serve without risking the collapse of the front. That is why soldiers wait for even the possibility of a pause in hostilities. When direct talks between Russia and Ukraine were held in Istanbul in May, the soldiers from 148th brigade read the news with cautious hope, said a soldier with the call sign Bronson, who once worked as a tattoo artist. Months later, hope has been replaced with dark humor. On the eve of a deadline that U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly gave Russia's Vladimir Putin — one that has since vanished from the agenda amid talk of a meeting in Alaska — the Russian fire roared every minute for hours. Soldiers joked that the shelling was because the deadline was 'running out.' 'We are on our land. We have no way back,' said the commander of the artillery group, Dmytro Loviniukov. 'We stand here because there is no choice. No one else will come here to defend us.' Training for what's ahead Dozens of kilometers from Zaporizhzhia region, north to the Donetsk area, heavy fighting grinds on toward Pokrovsk — now the epicenter of fighting. Once home to about 60,000 people, the city has been under sustained Russian assault for months. The Russians have formed a pocket around Pokrovsk, though Ukrainian troops still hold the city and street fighting has yet to begin. Reports of Russian saboteurs entering the city started to appear almost daily, but the military says those groups have been neutralized. Ukrainian soldiers of the Spartan brigade push through drills with full intensity, honing their skills for the battlefield in the Pokrovsk area. Everything at the training range, only 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the front, is designed to mirror real combat conditions — even the terrain. A thin strip of forest breaks up the vast fields of blooming sunflowers stretching into the distance until the next tree line appears. One of the soldiers training there is a 35-year-old with the call sign Komrad, who joined the military only recently. He says he has no illusions that the war will end soon. 'My motivation is that there is simply no way back,' he said. 'If you are in the military, you have to fight. If we're here, we need to cover our brothers in arms.' Truce doesn't mean peace For Serhii Filimonov, commander of the 'Da Vinci Wolves' battalion of the 59th brigade, the war's end is nowhere in sight, and current news doesn't influence the ongoing struggle to find enough resources to equip the unit that is fighting around Pokrovsk. 'We are preparing for a long war. We have no illusions that Russia will stop," he said, speaking at his field command post. "There may be a ceasefire, but there will be no peace.' Filimonov dismisses recent talk of exchanging territory or signing agreements as temporary fixes at best. 'Russia will not abandon its goal of capturing all of Ukraine,' he said. 'They will attack again. The big question is what security guarantees we get — and how we hit pause." A soldier with the call sign Mirche from the 68th brigade said that whenever there is a new round of talks, the hostilities intensify around Pokrovsk — Russia's key priority during this summer's campaign. Whenever peace talks begin, "things on the front get terrifying,' he said. ___
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Gold slips as investors focus on U.S.-Russia talks on Ukraine
Gold prices slipped on Monday as market participants focused on U.S.-Russia talks on the war in Ukraine, and July inflation data that could offer more insight into the Federal Reserve's interest rate outlook. Spot gold was down 0.6% at $3,378.49 per ounce, as of 0521 GMT, after hitting its highest since July 23 on Friday. U.S. gold futures for December delivery dropped 1.4% to $3,441.20. "Cooling geopolitical tensions surrounding the war in Ukraine saw gold fall further, following Friday's announcement that President Donald Trump will meet with Vladimir Putin on the U.S. soil," City Index senior analyst Matt Simpson said. Trump said on Friday he will meet Russian President Putin on August 15 in Alaska to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. Focus is also on U.S. consumer price data due on Tuesday, with analysts expecting the impact of tariffs to help nudge the core up 0.3% to an annual pace of 3.0% and away from the Fed's target of 2%. "A hot print could further strengthen the dollar and cap gains in gold, though I suspect support will remain in place overall as investors seek to scoop up discounts," Simpson said. Recent softer-than-expected U.S. jobs report boosted bets for a Fed rate cut in September. Markets imply around a 90% probability of a September easing, and at least one more cut by this year-end. 0#USDIRPR Non-yielding gold thrives in a low-interest-rate environment. Also on the radar are Sino-U.S. trade discussions as Trump's August 12 deadline for a deal between Washington and Beijing loomed. Meanwhile, COMEX gold speculators increased net long position by 18,965 contracts to 161,811 in the week to August 5. Elsewhere, spot silver fell 0.5% to $38.13 per ounce, platinum XPT= slipped 1.1% to $1,317.90 and palladium gained 0.1% to $1,127.37.
