Temporary visas begin expiring next month for 2,600 Ukrainians in N.L.
The province's immigration minister hopes Ottawa will extend those temporary residency visas. About 4,300 Ukrainians have arrived in Newfoundland and Labrador since the province established an overseas desk to encourage immigration. Roughly 1,700 of those Ukrainians have been nominated for economic immigration, which means visas for 2,600 more are set to expire on March 31. Sarah Stoodley wants them to stay.
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32 minutes ago
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Ukrainian woman searches for husband lost in action two years ago
By Tom Balmforth CHERNIHIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -When gaunt Ukrainian soldiers dismount from buses as part of prisoner swaps with Russia, Mariia Pylnyk tries to find out anything she can about her missing husband from the freed men, and hopes, just maybe, that he will be among them. Holding up a photograph of Dmytro Pylnyk, lost in action in early 2023, she has many questions. What happened to his unit when it was ambushed by Russian forces? Was he captured by Russia? Could he eventually be released? The mass prisoner swap last month was an opportunity for people like her to ask troops just out of Russian captivity about missing loved ones who they believe, or simply hope, are prisoners of war. The alternative is unthinkable. "I hold out great hope that someone has heard something, seen something," Pylnyk, 29, told Reuters at a recent exchange in May, flanked by other relatives of those missing in action. "My son and I are waiting for (his) dad to come home. Hope dies last. God willing, it'll all be okay and dad will come back." Precise numbers for soldiers missing in action are not made public. For Ukrainians, and for Russians on the other side of the conflict, it can be hard to find out even basic information. Pylnyk says she has written to government agencies and Russian authorities and learned almost nothing. Ukrainian officials say more than 70,000 Ukrainians have been registered missing since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. The majority are from the military but the figure also includes civilians. Another 12,000 have been removed from the list after being identified among the dead or returned in exchanges. Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the Coordination Council that arranges prisoner swaps from the Ukrainian side, said Russia had never notified Kyiv which soldiers it is holding prisoner. Ukraine collects that data by other means as best it can, he said. Pylnyk and others like her share information in online chat groups and use it to try to piece together what happened. "Misfortune brought us together," she said. "After two years of this, we're like a family." LAST PHONE CALL Dmytro Pylnyk, an electrician by trade, was drafted into the army in late 2022. He phoned home often so that his wife did not worry but last called on their son Artem's third birthday on Feb. 27, 2023. He was deployed from Kharkiv region towards Bakhmut, a small city that later fell to Russian forces after fierce fighting. His unit's convoy was caught in a Russian ambush, Mariia Pylnyk said she had learned. "The guys ran any which way," she said, citing conversations with commanders who told her 41 soldiers were missing in action. Two were captured and have since been released. One, who was freed in an exchange at Easter and had lost both his arms, was unable to share any valuable information, she said. The second refused to talk. The pace of prisoner swaps has increased in the last month. Ukraine and Russia each released 1,000 prisoners in a three-day exchange last month, the only tangible outcome of direct talks in Istanbul. A prisoner swap of under-25s on Monday was the first in a series of exchanges also expected to include each side repatriating the remains of thousands. Mariia Pylnyk has given her son's DNA to the authorities so that if Dmytro is confirmed killed in action they will be notified. "We all understand that this is war and anything is possible. But to this day, I don't believe it and I don't feel that he is dead. I feel like he's alive and God willing he'll return," she said. NO SIGNAL TO CALL She lives with Artem, now five, in Pakul, a village in the northern Chernihiv region that was briefly occupied by Russians. She has not told Artem his father is missing in action. "He knows that dad is a soldier, dad is a good man, dad is at work and just doesn't have any signal to call," she said. She takes comfort from seeing families reunited and never allows herself to cry in front of her son. She used to work in a shop, but Artem has often been ill. The angst of the last two years have taken their toll on her health too. She receives state support. Pylnyk has vowed to find her husband but has often not had time to attend prisoner swaps while looking after their son. "Only a weakling can give up, you know, throw up their hands and say that's it, he's not there," she said, adding that she was very emotional when she attended last month's big exchange. "When I was there, the fighting spirit awoke in me that I needed. I have to do this. Who else will do it but me?"
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
Soldiers return home after years in captivity as Ukraine-Russia prisoner swap begins
A new prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia has begun, officials in both countries said Monday, with Ukrainian soldiers who have spent nearly the entire duration of the war in captivity among those returning home. The exchange, agreed last week during talks in Turkey, involves detained people under the age of 25, as well as those who are seriously wounded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on Telegram. It follows a dispute at the weekend during which Moscow accused Ukraine of holding up the exchange — a claim that Kyiv denied. 'Our people are home,' Zelensky wrote. 'Ukrainians are returning home from Russian captivity. The exchange began today and will continue in several stages over the next few days.' Among those being released are Ukrainian soldiers who defended the city of Mariupol, which suffered a brutal Russian assault in the first few weeks of the war, the Ukraine Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said. The vast majority of those being released have been in captivity since 2022, according to Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's parliamentary commissioner for human rights. Russia's Ministry of Defense also confirmed that the exchange is underway. 'The Russian servicemen are currently in the Republic of Belarus, where they are receiving the necessary psychological and medical assistance,' the ministry said. Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia's delegation for peace talks with Ukraine, said last week that the exchange would be the largest since the start of the three-year war. He said Russia would transfer the bodies of more than 6,000 killed Ukrainian troops, plus an unspecified number of wounded servicemen. Monday's news comes after a weekend of accusations being hurled between both Moscow and Kyiv in relation to the exchange. Russia accused Ukraine of unexpectedly postponing the transfer of dead Ukrainian soldiers' bodies, leaving hundreds of body bags inside refrigerated trucks waiting at an exchange point it said Kyiv had agreed to. Ukrainian officials rejected Russia's account of events, saying that the two sides had agreed to exchange seriously wounded and young troops on Saturday, but a date had not yet been set for the repatriation of soldiers' remains. The prisoner swap was a result of a second set of direct peace negotiations that took place last Monday in Istanbul. Though the exchange was agreed upon, there were no major breakthroughs, with talks lasting a little over an hour. As the prisoner exchange will last multiple days, and is 'quite complex,' negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will 'continue virtually every day,' Zelensky said Monday. 'We count on the full implementation of the humanitarian agreements reached during the meeting in Istanbul. We are doing everything possible to bring back every single person. We are working toward this at every level,' he added.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
Putin promised to make Ukraine pay for its airbase attacks. What does he have left?
For more than three years, Russia has used its fleet of bombers to rain hellfire on Ukraine. On June 1, Kyiv responded by going after those bombers. The operation, codenamed 'Spiderweb,' was 18 months in the making. Dozens of hidden drones emerged from trucks parked in Russia, racing to airfields thousands of miles from Ukraine and destroying at least 12 bombers. Although the operation was a huge boost for Ukrainian morale, many in the country braced for Moscow's retaliation. Their fears sharpened when Russian President Vladimir Putin told his US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday that the Kremlin would 'have to respond' to the attack. Russia's initial retaliation began Thursday night, in the form of a massive drone and missile strike on Kyiv and across the country. Russia's Ministry of Defense described the strikes as a 'response' to Kyiv's 'terrorist acts.' The attack was punishing, but not qualitatively different to what Ukraine has grown used to over three years of war. Olha, a 67-year-old resident of Kyiv who asked to be identified only by her first name, told CNN that if Thursday night's strikes were Russia's retaliation, then Ukraine faces 'many such retaliations – once a month, even more.' Russia's response so far to Ukraine's extraordinary operation has raised questions about Putin's ability to escalate the war and exact the retribution that many of his supporters have clamored for. And it has left Ukrainians wondering if it has already felt the brunt of Russia's response, or if the worst is yet to come. In determining Russia's retaliation, analysts say, Putin has faced several constraints. One is political: Mounting a large-scale, innovative response to the 'Spiderweb' operation would be akin to admitting that Ukraine had inflicted a serious blow against Russia – an impression the Kremlin has been at pains to avoid, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington DC. In a meeting with government ministers on Wednesday, Putin received a lengthy briefing on recent bridge collapses in Kursk and Bryansk, blamed by Russia on Ukraine. Yet, aside from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's reference to recent 'criminal provocations' by Kyiv, there was no mention of the 'Spiderweb' operation. In Russian state media's coverage of Putin's call Wednesday with Trump, little was made of the Russian president's pledge to 'respond' to Ukraine's attack. Instead, the reports focused on the outcome of recent peace talks in Istanbul. Stepanenko said this is part of a deliberate strategy. 'Putin is trying to make this go away and hide this failure yet again,' she told CNN. She said a high-profile response 'would contradict the Kremlin's strategic objective of making it all go away and sweeping this under the rug.' Putin has also faced material constraints. Whereas Russia's near-daily strikes on Ukraine used to involve just dozens of drones, they now routinely use more than 400. A day before Ukraine's 'Spiderweb' operation, on May 31, Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine – a record in the three-year war, which was surpassed again during Sunday night's attacks, which used 479 drones. 'Russia's response is constrained by the amount of force they're constantly using,' said William Alberque, a former NATO arms control official now at the Stimson Center think tank. 'How would you know if Russia was actually retaliating? What would be more brutal than them destroying apartment flats or attacking shopping malls? What would escalation look like?' Russia's pro-war community of Telegram bloggers was not short of ideas. Some prominent channels said that Kyiv's strikes on Moscow's nuclear-capable bombers warranted a nuclear strike on Ukraine. Others called for a strike using the Oreshnik ballistic missile, which was unveiled by Putin last year, and has so far been used only once against Ukraine. Although Putin often praises his new missile, it has limited uses, said Mark Galeotti, a leading Russia analyst. 'The Oreshnik is really geared for a particular kind of target. It's not that accurate… and it's not a bunker-buster,' he told CNN, meaning the missile would struggle to take out key manufacturing and decision-making hubs that Ukraine has moved deep underground. 'If you're going to deploy it… you want it to have a target that's worthy of the name.' One target could be Ukraine's security services, the SBU, which masterminded the 'Spiderweb' operation, he said. 'But that's not something you can do quickly,' he cautioned. 'In some ways, Putin has already swept away most of the escalation rungs at his disposal, which means that he doesn't have the option for clear punishment.' In a sign that Moscow's 'retaliation' may be ongoing, Russia's Ministry of Defense said it had struck a Ukrainian airfield in the western Rivne region on Sunday night – a week after Ukraine's attacks on Russian airfields. The ministry said the attack was 'one of the retaliatory strikes' for Kyiv's 'terrorist attacks' against Russia's airfields, suggesting there may be more to come. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine's air force, said the attack on the airfield was 'one of the biggest ever carried out by Russia.' Although air defenses 'performed very well,' he said it was 'impossible to shoot down everything.' Although Putin may be constrained in his ability to respond to Ukraine's spectacular operation with one of Russia's own, this may not matter on the battlefield, said Galeotti. 'From a political perspective… it's the Ukrainians who demonstrate that they are the nimble, imaginative, effective ones, and the Russians are just thuggish brutes who continue to grind along,' he said. 'But from the military perspective, in some ways, that's fine.' While Ukraine may have the initiative in terms of headlines and spectacle, Russia still has the initiative on the battlefield. Russian troops have opened a new front in Ukraine's northern Sumy region and are now just 12 miles from the main city. And on Sunday, Moscow claimed that its forces had advanced into the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk for the first time, after months of clashes. The question is whether 'Putin is willing to accept whatever damage happens on the home front, precisely for his slow attrition grind forward,' said Galeotti. Alberque, of the Stimson Center, said a lot rests on whether Ukraine has been weaving more 'Spiderwebs,' or whether its drone attack was a one-off. 'The fact that this operation was a year- and-a-half in the planning – how many other operations are a year-in right now?' he asked. Two days after the drone attack, Ukraine's SBU unveiled another operation – its third attempt to blow up the bridge connecting Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. The bridge over the Kerch Strait was not significantly damaged, but the attack reinforced the SBU's commitment to impressing upon Moscow that there are costs to continuing its war. If 'humiliating' operations like those continue, Putin will come under greater pressure to deliver a response that is different in kind, not just degree, Alberque said. 'Putin is such a creature of strongman politics,' he added. '(The Kremlin) is going to look for other ways to strike back, to show the Russian people that Putin is a great wartime president who is inflicting horrible damage on his enemy, rather than a victim of these spectacular Ukrainian attacks.' CNN's Kosta Gak and Victoria Butenko contributed reporting.
