Latest news with #Chernigiv
News24
3 days ago
- Business
- News24
Russia kills 5 in Ukraine attack as Putin vows revenge for airbase strikes
Russian attacks killed five in Ukraine. Russia President Vladimir Putin vowed revenge for Ukraine's attack on military airbases. Ukraine and the US have discussed how to make a minerals fund operational. Russian drone strikes killed five people and wounded six others in the northern Ukrainian city of Pryluky, a Ukrainian official said on Thursday. 'Five people have been reported dead, including two women and a one-year-old child, who were found under the rubble,' Vyacheslav Chaus, a Chernigiv regional official, wrote on Telegram, adding six people were wounded and hospitalised. 'The explosions damaged houses in a residential area,' he said. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, tens of thousands of people have been killed, swaths of eastern and southern Ukraine destroyed, and millions forced to flee their homes. Ukraine has retaliated on Russian soil, conducting a dramatic drone attack on Russian military airbases over the weekend, destroying billions of dollars' worth of nuclear-capable bombers. READ | Hope for Ukraine peace fades as Russia rejects 'immediate solutions and breakthroughs' Russian leader Vladimir Putin has said he will seek revenge for Kyiv's attack, and has appeared to rule out a ceasefire or direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Shelling in the partially Russian-occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine late on Wednesday caused a substation to lose power, leaving thousands without electricity. 'The Novotroitskoye 150kV substation lost power as a result of shelling... Over 120 000 people were left without light and water', Vladimir Saldo, governor of the Russian-occupied part of Kherson, wrote on Telegram. Reuters reported that Russian aircraft were damaged but not destroyed in the 1 June attack by Ukraine, and they would be restored, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview with the state news agency TASS. The equipment in question, as was also stated by representatives of the Ministry of Defence, was not destroyed but damaged. It will be restored. Sergei Ryabkov The US assesses that Ukraine's drone attack over the weekend hit as many as 20 Russian warplanes, destroying around 10 of them, two US officials told Reuters, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Zelensky. The Ukrainian military said it struck Russian missile systems in Bryansk region which were preparing to attack the country on Thursday. 'One Russian missile launcher detonated, and two others were most likely damaged,' Ukraine's general staff said via the Telegram messaging app. The general staff said that Ukraine's capital Kyiv was likely the target of the attack getting prepared by the unit in Bryansk region. Ukraine and the US have discussed how to make a minerals fund operational by the end of the year and the fund's first meeting is expected in July, Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said in Washington on Wednesday. The agreement on developing Ukraine's mineral resources, heavily promoted by US President Donald Trump, was signed by Svyrydenko in Washington in April after weeks of tough negotiations made the terms more favourable to Kyiv. Jose Colon/Anadolu via Getty Images Ukraine's parliament then ratified the deal. On Wednesday, Svyrydenko held meetings with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Development Finance Corporation, which would be a partner of the minerals fund, 'and we discussed very concrete steps how to make this fund operational during this year', she told reporters. 'So we plan to have the first board meeting of this fund in July and we will discuss what will be the seed capital to start operating this fund. And actually, too, we should adopt the investment strategy for this fund for the next few years.' The negotiations leading to the clinching of the minerals fund deal followed a heated exchange at the White House between Trump and Zelensky over how to work toward ending Ukraine's three-year-old war with Russia.
Al Bawaba
4 days ago
- General
- Al Bawaba
Russian drone attack kills 5 in Ukraine
Published June 5th, 2025 - 07:12 GMT ALBAWABA - A Ukrainian official said in a statement that drone strikes carried out by Russia led to the killing of five people in the northern Ukrainian city of Pryluky. Six others were injured in the Russian attack. "Five people have been reported dead, including two women and a one-year-old child, who were found under the rubble," Vyacheslav Chaus, a Chernigiv regional official, posted via Telegram. "The explosions damaged houses in a residential area," he mentioned. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that Moscow will respond to Ukraine's major drone attack on Russian airbases, US President Donald Trump said after a phone call with the Russian counterpart on Wednesday. Trump wrote on Truth Social: "President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields." © 2000 - 2025 Al Bawaba (
Arab News
24-05-2025
- Arab News
'Seventh heaven': Tears and laughter as Ukrainian POWs return
CHERNIGIV: Waxy and emaciated, Konstantin Steblev spoke to his mother for the first time in three years after being released as part of the biggest ever prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine. 'Hello mum, how are you?,' the 31-year-old soldier said, moments after stepping back onto Ukrainian soil on Friday. 'I love you. Don't be sad. It wasn't my fault. I promised I would come back safe and sound,' he said, smiling but with watery eyes. Steblev, who was captured at the start of Russia's invasion, was one of 390 military and civilian prisoners released in exchange for 390 sent back to Russia. More swaps are expected on Saturday and Sunday to bring the total to 1,000 for 1,000 as agreed in talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul last week. Steblev arrived with the other former captives by coach at a local hospital where hundreds of relatives were waiting, shouting, crying and singing 'Congratulations!' During the journey back to Ukraine, Steblev told AFP he experienced 'indescribable' emotions. 'It's simply crazy. Crazy feelings,' he said. During his years of captivity, Steblev said he managed to keep going thanks to his wife. 'She knows I am strong and that I am not going to give up just like that,' he said, adding that now he just wants to be with his family. 'It's my absolute priority,' he said. After that, he said it would be up to his wife to decide on the next steps. 'She will tell me and will show me how to act in future,' he said. Thin, tired and looking slightly lost, the freshly released prisoners filed into a local hospital for medical checks. But Olena and Oleksandr stayed outside, locked in a tight embrace despite the cameras pointed at them. They said they had not seen each other in 22 months since Oleksandr was captured by Russia. 'I am in seventh heaven,' the 45-year-old said in his wife's arms. He said his dream now was to 'eat... eat and spend time with my family.' As the buses arrived at the hospital, relatives of soldiers who are still in prison ran toward the freed men to show them images of their loved ones and ask if they had seen them during their captivity. Some women walked away crying when they failed to get any news. Some know that their relatives are jailed but others have no news at all and desperately hope for any scrap of information. Moments after being reunited with her husband Andriy after three years apart, Elia, 33, embraced the tearful mother of a soldier who had no news about her son. When she saw her husband, Elia said her 'heart was beating out of my chest' and she cried with joy. 'I have been waiting so long for this,' she said. Several former prisoners of war interviewed by AFP in the past have spoken of harsh conditions and torture in Russian prisons. Elia is now thinking about the future and about having a child with her husband. But she said she knew that the path to rehabilitation would be a long one for him. 'He has an empty stare but I know they did not break him. The guys with him told me he was very strong,' she said.
Japan Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Ukraine and Russia exchange 390 prisoners in first stage of swap
Ukraine and Russia began a major prisoner exchange Friday, which if completed would be the biggest swap since Moscow invaded more than three years ago. Both sides received 390 people in this first stage and are expected to exchange 1,000 each in total under an agreement reached at direct talks in Istanbul last week. Russia has signaled it will send Ukraine its terms for a peace settlement after the swap, which is set to be staggered over three days. The two enemies have held regular prisoner swaps since Russia launched its 2022 offensive — but none have been on this scale. A reporter saw some of the formerly captive Ukrainian soldiers arrive at a hospital in the northern Chernigiv region, emaciated but smiling and waving to crowds waiting outside. After they stepped off the bus, tearful relatives rushed to embrace the soldiers while others held pictures of their loved ones, hoping to find out if they had been seen in captivity. Many of the soldiers were draped in bright yellow and blue Ukrainian flags. "The first stage of the '1,000-for-1,000' exchange agreement has been carried out," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X. "Today — 390 people. On Saturday and Sunday, we expect the exchange to continue." Russia said it had received 270 Russian troops and 120 civilians, including some from parts of its Kursk region captured and held by Kyiv for months. The two sides have not yet revealed the identities of those exchanged. U.S. President Donald Trump earlier congratulated the two countries for the swap. "This could lead to something big???" he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Trump's efforts to broker a ceasefire in Europe's biggest conflict since World War II have so far been unsuccessful, despite his pledge to rapidly end the fighting. One of the soldiers formerly held captive, 58-year-old Viktor Syvak, said he was delighted to be back. Captured in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol he had been held for 37 months and 12 days. "It's very vivid. I didn't expect such a welcome. It's impossible to describe. I can't put it into words. It's very joyful," he said. Ukrainian soldier Kostiantyn Steblev, captured a few months after Russia's invasion in 2022, said being freed was "indescribable." "For three years ... I was still living in 2022. I don't know what it will be like in 2025," the 31-year-old said. "My wife's faith in me helped. I understood that if I gave up, I would let my wife down first." Several Ukrainians said they were anxiously waiting to see if their relatives had been included in the swap. "We have been looking for our son for two years," said Liudmyla Parkhomenko, a mother of a Ukrainian soldier who went missing during combat in the city of Bakhmut. "Today I would like the Lord to send us good news. ... We feel in our hearts that he's alive," she added. Anastasia Ruda, 28, said she hoped her brother would return. "It's been eight months of silence, we don't even know whether he is in captivity or not, we hope that maybe the guys will help us today," she said. After 39 months of fighting, thousands of POWs are held in both countries. Russia is believed to have the larger share, with the number of Ukrainian captives held by Moscow estimated to be between 8,000 and 10,000. With Kyiv not knowing the fate of thousands, each exchange brings surprises, a senior official said. "Almost every exchange includes people no one had knowledge about," he said. "Sometimes they return people who were on the lists of missing persons or were considered dead." Russia said it would send Ukraine its terms for a peace settlement once the exchange was over, without saying what those terms would be. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have stepped up a gear in recent weeks, but the Kremlin has shown no sign it has walked back its maximalist demands for ending the fighting. Trump has been seeking to broker an end to the fighting since taking office in January, but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin. Moscow has defied European pressure for a full and unconditional truce in Ukraine, pressing on with its three-year offensive, which has left tens of thousands dead. Russian missiles killed two people and wounded several others in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Friday, according to authorities.
