Russia awaits Ukraine's confirmation on planned exchange of dead soldiers: officials
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 Zelenskyy's 'personal decision not to take the bodies of the Ukrainians' or whether 'someone from NATO prohibited it.'
Story continues below advertisement
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.
Get daily National news
Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up
By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy
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 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.
Story continues below advertisement
It wasn't immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting claims.
Russia says it is heading into Dnipropetrovsk region
In other developments, Russia's defence 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 neighbouring 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.
Russia and Ukraine exchange aerial attacks
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.
Story continues below advertisement
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 defence 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.
Story continues below advertisement
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
You really can see Russia from Alaska, and other things to know ahead of Friday's Trump-Putin summit
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, it will be the latest chapter in the 49th state's long history with Russia — and with international tensions. Siberian fur traders arrived from across the Bering Sea in the first part of the 18th century, and the imprint of Russian settlement in Alaska remains. The oldest building in Anchorage is a Russian Orthodox church, and many Alaska Natives have Russian surnames. The nations are so close — Alaska's Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait is less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from Russia's Big Diomede — that former Gov. Sarah Palin was right during the 2008 presidential race when she said, 'You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska,' though the comment prompted jokes that that was the extent of her foreign policy experience. Alaska has been U.S. territory since 1867, and it has since been the location of the only World War II battle on North American soil, a focus of Cold War tensions and the site of occasional meetings between U.S. and world leaders. Here's a look at Alaska's history with Russia and on the international stage: Russian trappers and Seward's Folly The fur traders established hubs in Sitka and on Kodiak Island. The Russian population in Alaska never surpassed about 400 permanent settlers, according to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. State Department. Russian settlers brutally coerced Alaska Natives to harvest sea otters and other marine mammals for their pelts, said Ian Hartman, a University of Alaska Anchorage history professor. 'It was a relationship that the Russians made clear quite early on was not really about kind of a longer-term pattern of settlement, but it was much more about a short-term pattern of extraction,' Hartman said. Meanwhile, Russian Orthodox missionaries baptized an estimated 18,000 Alaska Natives. By 1867 the otters had been hunted nearly to extinction and Russia was broke from the Crimean War. Czar Alexander II sold Alaska to the U.S. for the low price of $7.2 million — knowing Russia couldn't defend its interests in Alaska if the U.S. or Great Britain tried to seize it. Skeptics referred to the purchase as 'Seward's Folly,' after U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward. That changed when gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1896. World War II and the Cold War The U.S. realized Alaska's strategic importance in the 20th century. During World War II the island of Attu — the westernmost in the Aleutian chain and closer to Russia than to mainland North America — was captured by Japanese forces. The effort to reclaim it in 1943 became known as the war's 'forgotten battle.' During the Cold War, military leaders worried Soviets might attack via Alaska, flying planes over the North Pole to drop nuclear weapons. They built a chain of radar systems connected to an anti-aircraft missile system. The military constructed much of the infrastructure in Alaska, including roads and some communities, and its experience building on permafrost later informed the private companies that would drill for oil and construct the trans-Alaska pipeline. Last year the Pentagon said the U.S. must invest more to upgrade sensors, communications and space-based technologies in the Arctic to keep pace with China and Russia, and it sent about 130 soldiers to a desolate Aleutian island amid an increase in Russian military planes and vessels approaching U.S. territory. Past visits by dignitaries Putin will be the first Russian leader to visit, but other prominent figures have come before him. Japanese Emperor Hirohito stopped in Anchorage before heading to Europe in 1971 to meet President Richard Nixon, and in 1984 thousands turned out to see President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II meet at the airport in Fairbanks. President Barack Obama visited in 2015, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot north of the Arctic Circle, on a trip to highlight the dangers of climate change. Gov. Bill Walker welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping at the airport in Anchorage in 2017 and then took him on a short tour of the state's largest city. Four years later Anchorage was the setting for a less cordial meeting as top U.S. and Chinese officials held two days of contentious talks in their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office two months earlier. Critics say Alaska is a poor choice for the summit Sentiment toward Russia in Alaska has cooled since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Anchorage Assembly voted unanimously to suspend its three-decade-long sister city relationship with Magadan, Russia, and the Juneau Assembly sent its sister city of Vladivostock a letter expressing concern. The group Stand Up Alaska has organized rallies against Putin on Thursday and Friday. Dimitry Shein, who ran unsuccessfully for Alaska's lone seat in the U.S. House in 2018, fled from the Soviet Union to Anchorage with his mother in the early 1990s. He expressed dismay that Trump has grown increasingly authoritarian. Russia and the U.S. 'are just starting to look more and more alike,' he said. Many observers have suggested that holding the summit in Alaska sends a bad symbolic message. 'It's easy to imagine Putin making the argument during his meetings with Trump that, 'Well, look, territories can change hands,'' said Nigel Gould-Davies, former British Ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. ''We gave you Alaska. Why can't Ukraine give us a part of its territory?'' ___ Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and Emma Burrows in London contributed.
Toronto Star
2 hours ago
- Toronto Star
You really can see Russia from Alaska, and other things to know ahead of Friday's Trump-Putin summit
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, it will be the latest chapter in the 49th state's long history with Russia — and with international tensions. Siberian fur traders arrived from across the Bering Sea in the first part of the 18th century, and the imprint of Russian settlement in Alaska remains. The oldest building in Anchorage is a Russian Orthodox church, and many Alaska Natives have Russian surnames.
Vancouver Sun
3 hours ago
- Vancouver Sun
Putin speaks with Kim Jong Un to reaffirm alignment over Ukraine ahead of meeting with Trump
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call to discuss their deepening ties and war efforts against Ukraine, the countries' state media said Wednesday, ahead of Putin's planned meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska. Putin during the call on Tuesday praised the 'bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit' displayed by North Korean troops as they fought with Russian forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said. Putin also shared with Kim information about his upcoming talks with Trump scheduled to take place Friday in Alaska, according to Russia's TASS news agency, citing the Kremlin. The North Korean reports did not mention the Trump meeting. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Kim told Putin that Pyongyang will fully support 'all measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future, too,' as they discussed advancing ties in 'all fields' under a strategic partnership agreement they signed during a summit last year, KCNA said. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Kim has made Moscow the priority of his foreign policy as he aims to break out of diplomatic isolation and expand relations with countries confronting Washington. His government has dismissed Washington and Seoul's stated desires to restart diplomacy aimed at defusing the North's nuclear program, which derailed in 2019 following a collapsed summit with Trump during his first term. According to South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent around 15,000 troops to Russia since last fall and also supplied large quantities of military equipment, including artillery and ballistic missiles, in support of Putin's war efforts against Ukraine. Kim has also agreed to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia's Kursk region, a deployment South Korean intelligence believes could happen soon. Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here .
