Zelenskyy considers Serbian president's visit important, as he witnessed war firsthand
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes that the first visit of his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vučić to Ukraine is important because he has seen the war firsthand.
Source: Zelenskyy on X (Twitter), as reported by European Pravda
Details: On the evening of Wednesday 11 June, Zelenskyy spoke about his conversation with Vučić, who visited Odesa and attended the Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit.
"This is the [Serbian] President's first visit to Ukraine, and it is truly important to be here in Ukraine and witness the war firsthand," the Ukrainian leader said.
Zelenskyy and Vučić discussed mutual support on the path to the European Union, bilateral cooperation and Ukraine's recovery.
Quote from Zelenskyy: "I thank [Vučić] for the initiative to help with the recovery efforts and to assume patronage over the reconstruction of several Ukrainian settlements. This is a truly effective form of cooperation, and we look forward to positive results."
Background:
Notably, the participants of the Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit have signed a declaration in which they condemn Russia's war against Ukraine "in the strongest possible terms" and call on the international community "to maintain and further strengthen sanctions against the Russian Federation".
Meanwhile, Vučić was the only participant in the event who did not sign it.
Commenting on this, Vučić said that in this way he "did not betray Russia".
Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Russian Forces Expand Fighting to a New Region of Eastern Ukraine
Pressing ahead with a new summer offensive, Russian forces have entered the Dnipropetrovsk region of eastern Ukraine for the first time in three years of war — signaling their capacity to keep expanding the fight as cease-fire talks show little signs of progress. Advancing west from the Donetsk region, the main theater of the ground war today, small squads of Russian soldiers began crossing into neighboring Dnipropetrovsk last weekend, according to three Ukrainian officers fighting in the area. A battlefield map by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, based on verified combat footage, now shows that Russian forces have secured a tiny foothold in the area. Russia is unlikely to try to seize the new region, which it has signaled in the past that it has no intentions of doing. Instead, military analysts and Ukrainian soldiers view the push as both symbolic — aimed at denting Ukrainian morale by breaching a new region — and strategic, designed to bolster its defenses in neighboring areas where it has already dug in. Still, both goals are likely to further widen the battlefield in a war now grinding through its fourth year. An officer with the call sign 'Barbarossa' from Ukraine's 72nd Brigade, which is currently fighting off Russian assaults into Dnipropetrovsk, said that Russia had accumulated 'a lot of forces' in the area, and that he expected them to push deeper into the region. Like other officers quoted in this article, he asked to be identified by his first name or call sign only, in keeping with military protocol. Russia's Defense Ministry first claimed on Sunday that some of its forces had reached the administrative border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk and were 'continuing their offensive.' Ukraine's top military command has so far denied that Russian troops have entered Dnipropetrovsk. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Ukrainians face painful wait to learn if loved ones are among returned bodies
By Margaryta Chornokondratenko and Aleksandar Vasovic BUCHA, Ukraine (Reuters) -Volodymyr Umanets, a 69-year-old security guard, hopes his son will be among the Ukrainian prisoners of war now being handed over by Russia, but he knows he could be part of a more sombre homecoming: the repatriated remains of dead soldiers. Not knowing which group his son, Sergiy, will be in is a torment. 'I am told to wait. What else is left for me to do?' said Umanets, as tears welled up in his eyes. This week Russia and Ukraine began implementing a deal reached at June 2 peace talks in Istanbul to hand over 1,000 prisoners of war each, and also a huge number of human remains. Alongside the joyful scenes of soldiers returning home and hugging loved ones, there have been macabre images of men dressed in hazmat suits transferring body bags from refrigerated trucks. Russia said it plans to hand over the remains of around 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers in this phase of the exchange. So far this week, it said it transferred 1,212 sets of remains, while Ukraine said it handed over the bodies of 27 Russian soldiers. Volodymyr Umanets's son Sergiy, 49, served in the army as a younger man and volunteered to rejoin shortly after the February 2022 full-scale invasion. He was serving in the Ukrainian military in south-eastern Ukraine when he went missing in combat in December 2023. His father, who works as a security guard in the town hall in Bucha, outside Kyiv, said he still hopes Sergiy is alive, and that he was captured by the Russian side. But he acknowledged the possibility that his son may have been killed. He gave authorities a sample of his DNA so that if Sergiy's remains are recovered, he can be identified. 'You know, I want to know at least something, to get at least some information,' he said. 'I read recently in the newspaper that a young man was declared missing. And during the exchange of bodies, his DNA was identified. He was buried today. I wish I knew at least this.' Each side has been handing over soldiers' remains periodically throughout the conflict, but the swap now underway is of an unprecedented scale. PAINSTAKING PROCESS For Ukraine, the repatriation of the remains marks the start of a long and painstaking process to identify who they are, how they died, and to notify their families. The task is made more complicated because sometimes the returned soldiers were killed in explosions so their bodies are in fragments, according to Djordje Alempijevic, a professor of forensic science at Belgrade University who helped examine the remains of people killed in conflicts in the Western Balkans in the 1990s. An added complication, he said, is that some of the remains have been stored for a long time, and they degrade, even if kept in refrigeration. In the best case scenario, the bodies are returned with some documents to help identification, said Dmytro Hapchenko, a local council official in Bucha who has worked on remains of people killed in the war. But he said that does not always happen. In fact, Ukraine has alleged that Russia's approach to processing the remains of Ukrainian soldiers has been haphazard. On June 2, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters that in previous repatriations of remains, Russia handed over bodies to Ukraine that were actually dead Russian soldiers. Russia, in response, has accused Ukraine of deliberately delaying the exchange of the remains, stranding trucks with human bodies on the Russian side of the border, a claim denied by Ukraine. Absent any identifying documents for the returned remains, forensic pathologists will try to conduct an autopsy, said Alempijevic. He said they look for features like old bone fractures, dental characteristics, and metal plates or screws from old surgeries. Alempijevic, member of the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, said autopsies also allowed pathologists to look for evidence of a war crime. Ukrainian prosecutors have alleged some Ukrainian soldiers were tortured in captivity, or summarily executed, and they are preparing criminal prosecutions. Russia has denied those allegations. Hapchenko, the Bucha city official, said he was supporting families from his area whose loved ones went missing in the fighting. 'Unfortunately, there are quite a few of them,' he said. Referring to the repatriation of fallen soldiers now underway, he said: 'Maybe now they'll be able to bury them.' (Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Nato drafts one-page communiqué to suit Trump's attention span
Donald Trump will be handed a one-page communiqué to sign off at a Nato leaders' summit, in an effort to avoid sparking a row between Europe and the US president, The Telegraph can disclose. The simplified statement will likely only contain around five or six paragraphs, detailing how the Western military alliance will meet Mr Trump's demand to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. The summit in The Hague will also be modelled on a similar leaders gathering in London in 2019, which was deliberately kept short because of the president's attention span. The one-page communiqué will be almost entirely focused on the historic decision to more than double spending on defence by leaders to meet new capability targets for deterring a Russian invasion. The Telegraph understands the document will brand Russia as a 'threat' to Nato, as well as offer a nod to the alliance's support for war-torn Ukraine. But it will strip out any mention of Kyiv's 'irreversible' path to membership, and remove any mention of climate change posing a 'defining challenge' to member states. Also, there will unlikely be any language accusing China of being a 'decisive enabler' of Russia's war against Ukraine. One alliance source said it would be 'focused on the core issues at hand'. It will be a stark contrast to previous statements issued by Nato leaders after their set-piece annual summit. At the 2023 summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the declaration contained 90 paragraphs. A year later, in Washington, leaders signed off on 44 lines of text, including statements on climate change, Ukraine, Russia, terrorism and the defence industry. A senior Nato diplomat said: 'We're going to go even shorter this time. A single sheet of paper and it should be five paragraphs long.' The conciseness of the statement is purely designed to prevent rows from breaking out between Mr Trump and his counterparts in Canada and Europe. European leaders have been barred from bringing up the issue of trade tariffs, in a further bid to maintain harmony with the president. The White House chief is known for preferring short, sharp briefings, with his aides deliberately keeping their memos to a single page of A4. A Nato source said the drafting process for the annual communiqué of Nato countries had been changed this year by Mark Rutte, the alliance's secretary-general, to make it more secure. Usually, the document leaks to the media in the final hours of negotiations between member states as the various commitments are agreed by deputy ambassadors and their staff. But sources close to Nato HQ said Mr Rutte had restricted the distribution list of the communiqué only to ambassadors, in an attempt to prevent it from leaking. The secretary-general has also cracked down on the 'Christmas tree' approach taken by member states in previous years, when national governments attach their own priorities to the communiqué. One example given was Spain's insistence at previous summits that the Mediterranean was listed as a key strategic region for Nato. The Dutch organisers of The Hague summit will also roll out the red carpet for the US president in the hope it keeps him sweet. There will be a working session solely on defence spending, with leaders huddled around the table. Mr Trump, a fan of royals, will also be given the opportunity to meet King Willem-Alexander at a dinner hosted by the Dutch monarch the night before the summit. Interactions between the US president and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, will also be limited, because of the risk of a public bust-up. A meeting of the Nato-Ukraine Council, the official body established in Washington, will be held by foreign ministers. There also won't be any meetings of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which coordinates Western military aid to Kyiv, or the 'coalition of the willing', the Anglo-French initiative to police any ceasefire. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
