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Japan Today
2 days ago
- Politics
- Japan Today
Ukraine has halted Russia's advance in northern Sumy region, commander says
Ukrainian servicemen carry a body of their comrade repatriated from Russia, at the morgue in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, June 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) By ILLIA NOVIKOV Ukrainian forces have halted Russia's recent advance into the northern Sumy region and have stabilized the front line near the border with Russia, Ukraine's top military commander said Thursday. Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander in chief of Ukraine's armed forces, said that Ukrainian successes in Sumy have prevented Russia from deploying about 50,000 Russian troops, including elite airborne and marine brigades, to other areas of the front line. His claim couldn't be independently verified, and Russian officials made no immediate comment. Russian forces have been slowly grinding forward at some points on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, though their incremental gains have been costly in terms of troop casualties and damaged armor. The outnumbered Ukrainian army has relied heavily on drones to keep the Russians back. Months of U.S.-led international efforts to stop the more than three years of war have failed. Amid the hostilities, the two sides have continued swaps of prisoners of war agreed on during recent talks between their delegations in Istanbul. Russia's Defense Ministry and Ukrainian authorities said another exchange took place on Thursday. Ukraine's coordination headquarters for POWs said the swap included injured soldiers and those with health complaints. The youngest is 24 and the oldest is 62, it said, adding that more exchanges are expected soon. Sumy, the city which is the capital of the Ukrainian region of the same name, had a prewar population of around 250,000. It lies about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the front line. Russia's push into the region earlier this year compelled Ukraine to strengthen its defenses there. A special defense group has been formed to improve security in Sumy and surrounding communities, Syrskyi said, with a focus on improving fortifications and accelerating construction of defensive barriers. In March, Ukrainian forces withdrew from much of Russia's neighboring Kursk region, parts of which they had controlled after a surprise cross-border attack in August. That retreat enabled Russia to launch a counteroffensive that advanced between 2-12 kilometers (1-7 miles) into Ukrainian territory, according to different estimates. Ukrainian officials say fierce fighting is also taking place in the eastern Donetsk region. The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that its forces have captured two villages, Novoserhiivka and Shevchenko, in Donetsk. Capturing Shevchenko marked an important stage in Russia's ongoing offensive that is trying to break into Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, which borders Donetsk and is a major industrial center, according to the ministry. Meanwhile, the two sides continued to launch long-range strikes. The Russian ministry said 50 Ukrainian drones were downed over nine regions overnight, including three over the Moscow region. Ukraine's air force said that Russia deployed 41 Shahed and decoy drones across the country overnight, wounding five people. It said that 24 drones were either intercepted or jammed. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Kyiv rescuers find more bodies as death toll from latest Russian aerial attack climbs to 28
In this aerial photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, searchers sift through the wreckage on the site of Russia's Tuesday deadly missile attack that ruined a multistory residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP) By JUSTIN SPIKE and ILLIA NOVIKOV Emergency workers pulled more bodies Wednesday from the rubble of a nine-story Kyiv apartment building demolished by a Russian missile, raising the death toll from the latest attack on the Ukrainian capital to 28. The building in Kyiv's Solomianskyi district took a direct hit and collapsed during the deadliest Russian attack on Kyiv this year. Authorities said that 23 of those killed were inside the building. The remaining five died elsewhere in the city. Workers used cranes, excavators and their hands to clear more debris from the site, while sniffer dogs searched for buried victims. The blast blew out windows and doors in neighboring buildings in a wide radius of damage. The attack overnight on Monday into Tuesday was part of a sweeping barrage as Russia once again sought to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles in what Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was one of the biggest bombardments of the war, now in its fourth year. Russia has launched a summer offensive on parts of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line and has intensified long-range attacks that have struck urban residential areas. At the same time, U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to grain traction. Also, Middle East tensions and U.S. trade tariffs have drawn world attention away from Ukraine's pleas for more diplomatic and economic pressure to be placed on Russia. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said the attack clashed with the attempts by the administration of President Donald Trump to reach a settlement that will stop the fighting. 'This senseless attack runs counter to President Trump's call to stop the killing and end the war,' the embassy posted on social platform X. Kyiv authorities declared Wednesday an official day of mourning. Mourners laid flowers on swings and slides at a playground across the street from the collapsed building. On Tuesday, a man had waited hours there for his 31-year-old son's body to be pulled from the rubble. Psychologists from Ukraine's emergency services provided counseling to survivors of the attack and to family members of those who died. 'Some people are simply in a stupor, they simply can't move,' Karyna Dovhal, one of the psychologists, told AP. 'People are waiting for their sons, brothers, uncles ... Everyone is waiting.' Valentin Hrynkov, a 64-year-old handyman in a local school who lived on the seventh floor of a connected building that did not collapse, said he and his wife woke up to the sound of explosions followed by a pause, and then another blast that rattled their own building. He said his wife had shrapnel injuries in her back and his legs and feet were cut by broken glass. The damage trapped them in their apartment for around 30 minutes before rescue workers could free them, he said. He felt an overwhelming sense of 'helplessness and primal fear' during the attack, he told The Associated Press. 'I was especially scared to sleep last night,' Hrynkov said. 'A car drives by and I cover my head. It's scary.' By dawn on Tuesday, residents of buildings in the densely populated neighborhood could be seen huddled in ground-floor entryways to seek shelter from the ongoing drone assault. Drones were striking every few minutes within hundreds of meters of the building hit by the missile. The continuing attack forced firefighters and rescue teams to delay the rescue operation. Relatives and friends of the destroyed building's residents later gathered outside in shock, many crying and calling out names, hoping survivors might still be found beneath the rubble. Vasilisa Stepanenko and Oleksandr Babenko contributed from Kyiv, Ukraine. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Kyiv comes under large-scale Russian drone and missile attack
People take shelter at Kontraktova Ploshcha subway station during a Russian drone and missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, May 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Illia Novikov) By ILLIA NOVIKOV Ukraine's capital came under a large-scale Russian drone and missile attack early Saturday with explosions and machine gun fire heard throughout the city, forcing many Kyiv residents to take shelter in underground subway stations. The nighttime Russian attack came hours after Russia and Ukraine began a major prisoner exchange, swapping hundreds of soldiers and civilians in the first phase of an exchange that was agreed on by the two sides at a meeting in Istanbul last week. The agreement was a moment of cooperation in otherwise failed efforts to reach a ceasefire in the 3-year-old war. The debris of intercepted missiles and drones fell in at least four city districts of the Ukrainian capital early Saturday, acting head of Kyiv military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, wrote on Telegram. According to Tkachenko, six people required medical care after the attack and two fires were sparked in the Solomianskyi district of Kyiv. Prior to the attack, city mayor Vitalii Klitschko warned Kyiv residents of more than 20 Russian strike drones heading towards Kyiv. As the attack continued, he said drone debris fell on a shopping mall and a residential building in Obolon district of Kyiv. Emergency services were headed to the site, Klitschko said. The prisoner swap Friday was the first phase of a complicated deal involving the exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the first phase brought home 390 Ukrainians, with further releases expected over the weekend that will make it the largest swap of the war. Russia's Defense Ministry said it received the same number from Ukraine. The swap took place at the border with Belarus in northern Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The released Russians were taken to Belarus for medical treatment, the Russian Defense Ministry said. As the freed men entered the medical facility Friday, people holding signs and photos of their relatives shouted names or brigade numbers, seeking any news of a loved one. The returning men inspected the photos, and a serviceman said he shared a cell with one of those on the sea of portraits held out toward him. 'Vanya!' cried Nataliia Mosych, among the gathered relatives, 'My husband!' The exchange, the latest of dozens of swaps since the war began and the biggest involving Ukrainian civilians at one time, didn't herald any halt in fighting. Battles continued along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed, and neither country has relented in its deep strikes. After the May 16 Istanbul meeting, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called the prisoner swap a 'confidence-building measure' and said the parties had agreed in principle to meet again. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that there has been no agreement yet on the venue for the next round of talks to end the fighting as diplomatic maneuvering continued. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday night that Moscow would give Ukraine a draft document outlining its conditions for a 'sustainable, long-term, comprehensive' peace agreement once the ongoing prisoner exchange had finished. European leaders have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet in peace efforts while he tries to press his larger army's battlefield initiative and capture more Ukrainian land. The Istanbul meeting revealed that both sides remained far apart on key conditions for ending the fighting. One such condition for Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, is a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement. Russia's Defense Ministry said it had shot down 788 Ukrainian drones away from the battlefield between May 20 and May 23. Ukraine's air force said Russia fired 175 Shahed and decoy drones, as well as a ballistic missile since late Thursday. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
