Latest news with #PoWs
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Second round of Ukraine-Russia talks end with PoW deal but no ceasefire
Negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul ended without agreement on a ceasefire on Monday, but with both sides agreeing to exchange more prisoners. Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the two sides had agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, with the possibility of swapping an additional 200 PoWs. He said an agreement had also been made to return the remains of killed service personnel, but added that this would take careful preparation. Zelenskyy did not take part in the talks but was speaking during a visit to Lithuania, where he called for stronger sanctions on Russia if it did not agree to a ceasefire. He said his negotiators had given their Russian counterparts a list of nearly 400 abducted Ukrainian children that Kyiv wanted Moscow to return home, but that the Russian delegation agreed to work on returning only 10 of them. Ukrainian officials said that the focus of the prisoner exchange should be the wounded and sick as well as young soldiers between 18 and 25 years old. Russian officials confirmed that 'all' sick and wounded prisoners would be swapped, and that the exchange would involve at least 1,000 PoWs. Monday's negotiations took place at the Çırağan Palace, a vast 19th-century Ottoman edifice on the banks of the Bosphorus that is now a luxury hotel. In one of its expansive conference chambers, the two delegations – each about a dozen strong – sat at long tables facing each other, about 10 metres apart. The Russians all came in dark suits, while the Ukrainians were mostly in military uniform. The whole meeting took less than two hours. After the talks, Ukraine's head negotiator and defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said the return of the abducted children 'is a fundamental priority for us'. 'If Russia is genuinely committed to a peace process, the return of at least half the children on this list is positive,' Umerov said. The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, confirmed only that it had received a list of 339 names of people Ukraine wanted returned, but did not comment further. The international criminal court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and a senior aide in 2023 for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. At Monday's meeting in Istanbul, Ukrainian officials said that the Russians rejected Kyiv's call for an unconditional ceasefire of at least a month, but had instead handed over a written proposal , which the Ukrainians said they would need more time to study before responding. They suggested the talks should reconvene towards the end of June. The Russian state news agency, RIA, said the Russian document proposed two options for a ceasefire, one of which would require Ukraine to begin a complete withdrawal of its troops from four of its regions occupied by Russia. RIA described the second option only as a 'package' containing a number of unspecified conditions. Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said meanwhile his government wanted to arrange a summit between Zelenskyy and Putin. 'My desire is to bring Putin and Zelenskyy together in Istanbul or Ankara – also to invite Trump to this meeting as well,' Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting in Ankara. 'We will take steps for this meeting after the latest talks.' Zelenskyy has repeatedly said he is ready to meet Putin and on Monday Umerov restated Kyiv's desire for a summit. 'We believe that all the key issues can only be solved at the level of leaders … with the possible involvement of other leaders such as the president of the United States,' the defence minister said. Heorhii Tykhyi, the Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson, said: 'If Putin says he is ready to meet tomorrow, our president Zelenskyy is ready to meet him tomorrow.' Last month, Zelenskyy challenged Putin to meet him in Ankara for a summit suggested by Donald Trump. However, the Russian leader did not respond and sent mid-level officials to the talks instead. Briefing reporters after Monday's talks, Medinsky said that the memorandum given to the Ukrainian delegation included proposed 'steps towards a full ceasefire'. He added that Moscow had suggested short ceasefires of two or three days at some parts of the front 'so that commanders can collect the bodies of their soldiers'. But he did not specify where Russia was proposing such local truces should take place. The Ukrainian side did not respond publicly to the proposal. Both sides stepped up their military operations before the Istanbul talks. Ukraine carried out a complex drone strike on targeting Russian bomber planes on four military airfields across Russia, as far away as Siberia. Related: Operation Spiderweb: a visual guide to Ukraine's destruction of Russian aircraft Ukrainian officials said that Sunday's remote-controlled drone operation, codename Operation Spiderweb, had been 18 months in the planning, and had succeeded in damaging or destroying 41 planes including Tu-160 and Tu-22 bombers, as well as Tu-95s used to launch cruise missiles against Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence put the total of Russian material losses at $7bn (£5.2bn). Ukraine's prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, called it a 'very accurate military operation', adding that as long as Russia rejected a ceasefire and continued to carry out attacks on Ukrainian civilians, Ukraine could continue to develop new ways to hamper Russia's capacity to carry out missile or drone attacks. 'Innovative technologies played a really crucial role in this operation, and these technologies now are the game-changers on the battlefield. And I believe that Ukraine has many other ideas, technologies, how to move ahead,' Shmyhal told the France24 television channel. 'We are working constantly to do our best to [restrict] Russian possibility to attack Ukraine … We continue to clear our sky from Russian bombers, and we will do the same in other spheres, including on the ground.'
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine and Russia exchange 800 PoWs in largest prisoner swap of war so far
Ukraine and Russia have begun the largest prisoner exchange of the three-year war, with almost 800 captives returned on both sides in a process expected to last several days. Confirming the first phase of the exchange had taken place, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Ukraine had returned 390 people to Russia and that the process would continue with further groups on Saturday and Sunday. 'It's very important to bring everyone home,' Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, thanking all who worked to secure their return and pledging to continue diplomatic efforts to make more exchanges possible. 'The agreement on the release of 1,000 of our people from Russian captivity was almost the only real result of the [direct talks between Russian and Ukraine a week ago in] Turkey,' he added elsewhere on social media. Images from the arrival of returned Ukrainian PoWs, released by Zelenskyy's office showed shaven-headed former prisoners being greeted by their families. The released Russians were taken to Belarus for medical treatment, the Russian defence ministry said. The exchange, which is also the biggest swap of Ukrainian civilians at one time, didn't appear to herald any imminent halt in fighting. Ukrainian media outlet Espreso TV published a video of the wife of a prisoner crying tears of joy, wrapped in a flag on Kyiv's Independence Square. She said she had been waiting for her husband's release since 2022 and had just received the call from Ukrainian authorities confirming his release. 'We waited, hoped and fought,' said the woman, whose name was given as Victoria. The exchange is part of the '1,000 for 1,000' deal thrashed out during otherwise inconclusive peace talks in Istanbul a week ago. The first stage of the swap took place at the border with Belarus in northern Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Earlier, Ukrainian authorities told reporters to assemble at a location in the northern Chernihiv region in anticipation that some freed prisoners could be brought there. Confirming the exchange had taken place, Russia's defence ministry said it had completed the first phase which it said saw the return of 270 military personnel and 120 civilians it claimed had been captured during Ukraine's long incursion into the Kursk region of Russia. The status of those being exchanged could not immediately be confirmed. At a medical facility where the released Ukrainians were due to be taken, relatives waited to see whether their loved ones would be part of the swap. Svitlana Kuskova, 49, held a sign with a photo of her husband, Oleksandr Kuskov, missing for the past year. Kuskov was a military driver who was later transferred to the infantry, and his wife has searched through Russian military channels, hoping to catch a glimpse of him or some sign he is still alive. 'It's extremely hard to go to sleep every night not knowing what happened to him,' she said. Olessia Dyadushkin, 37, held a photo of her 40-year-old husband, Valentin, missing since July 2024. Although she had no information about him, she has held onto hope because there was no confirmation that he was killed. Her four-year-old daughter often asks where her father is, and she tells her he's at work and very busy, Dyadushkin said, wiping away tears. Russia and Ukraine have swapped hundreds of captured soldiers, but the Kremlin has been reluctant to free non-combatants. In April, the Guardian and its reporting partners published the Viktoriia project, an investigation into the abduction and systematic torture of what Ukraine believes could be as many as 16,000 of its civilians. In many cases they do not have access to lawyers and their families have not been informed of their whereabouts. Among them was the Ukrainian investigative reporter Viktoriia Roshchyna, who died in a Russian jail last year after setting out to report on the enforced disappearances. While the exchange had been expected to start as early as Friday, speculation increased after the US president, Donald Trump, said – incorrectly at the time of his writing – that Russia and Ukraine had already completed the large exchange of prisoners, an assertion quickly denied by Ukrainian officials who said the swap was ongoing. 'A major prisoners swap was just completed between Russia and Ukraine,' Trump said on the Truth Social platform. He said it would 'go into effect shortly', although it was not clear what that meant. 'This could lead to something big???' Trump added in his post, apparently referring to international diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting. After the 16 May talks, the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, called the prisoner swap a 'confidence-building measure' and said the parties had agreed in principle to meet again. However, on Friday, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, rejected the idea of holding future peace talks with Ukraine at the Vatican, dismissing a proposal made earlier this week by Trump. Speaking at an ultra-nationalist conference in Moscow, Lavrov argued that the Vatican would be an inappropriate venue, saying it would be 'not quite comfortable' for two Orthodox nations to meet in a Catholic venue. He repeated some of Russia's widely debunked justifications for launching the war, claiming that talks in the Vatican were not appropriate because one of the war's root causes was Ukraine's alleged oppression of Orthodox believers. 'One of the root causes is the course towards elimination of the Ukrainian Orthodox church,' Lavrov said. 'I believe the Vatican would not be quite comfortable to host delegations from two Orthodox countries under such circumstances.' Related: In Ukraine, I saw Trump's 'peace deal' wouldn't just trade away land – but lives, memories and homes | Timothy Garton Ash In a string of hawkish remarks, Lavrov also signalled that Moscow remains committed to regime change in Ukraine, questioning Zelenskyy's legitimacy and referring to the elected Ukrainian government as a 'junta'. Lavrov said Moscow would not allow Russian-speakers in Ukraine to remain under the rule of Zelenskyy, adding that the simplest way to settle the conflict would be for the international community to demand that Ukraine cancel laws discriminating against Russian-speakers. The foreign minister also questioned Zelenskyy's legitimacy to sign any peace agreement, adding that new elections would be the most 'appropriate' way to determine who is entitled to represent Ukraine in future negotiations. At least 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers are being held captive by Russia, Iryna Vereshchuk, the presidential office deputy head, said on 1 May, citing data from Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of PoWs. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been wounded or killed in Europe's deadliest war since the second world war, although neither side publishes accurate casualty figures. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have also died as Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Ukraine's cities. Agencies contributed to this report
Leader Live
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Leader Live
Trump plans call with Putin after Russian drone hits bus in Ukraine
Mr Trump said that the call with Mr Putin will be about stopping what he called the 'bloodbath' in Ukraine. 'Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end,' Mr Trump wrote in a post on his social networking site, Truth Social. His remarks came less than a day after the first direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv in years failed to yield a ceasefire. Mr Putin had spurned Mr Zelensky's offer to meet face-to-face in Turkey after he himself proposed negotiations in Istanbul – although not at the presidential level – as an alternative to the 'full and unconditional' ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including the US. Earlier on Saturday, top diplomats from Russia and the US held the latest in a series of phone calls, shortly after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Vatican could be a venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. In Ukraine, a north-eastern town declared a period of mourning after a Russian drone hit a bus evacuating civilians from front-line areas, killing nine people, Ukrainian officials said. The strike came hours after the Russian and Ukrainian delegations left Istanbul after agreeing to a large exchange of prisoners of war (PoWs). Seven people were also injured in the attack in Bilopillia, a town around six miles from Russia's border, three of them seriously, according to local governor Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine's national police. Spoke with @POTUS together with President Macron, Federal Chancellor Merz, Prime Ministers Starmer and Tusk. We discussed the meeting in Istanbul. Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance.… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 16, 2025 Mr Zelensky described the attack as 'deliberate killing of civilians', adding in a post on the Telegram messaging app that 'Russians could scarcely not realise what kind of vehicle they were hitting'. The local media outlet Suspilne said the passengers on the bus were being evacuated from the town when the strike happened. Authorities are working to identify some of the victims, most of them elderly women. Mr Zelensky lamented the missed opportunity from Friday's peace talks, saying that 'Ukraine has long proposed this — a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives.' 'Russia only retains the ability to continue killing,' Mr Zelensky added. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was 'appalled' by the attack. 'If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,' he wrote on X. Russia's Defence Ministry claimed its forces hit a military staging area in the Sumy region on Saturday morning, some 50 31 miles south east of Bilopillia, without mentioning any other attacks there. According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank, Ukrainian forces have been inching forward into Russian territory in the Kursk region, just north of Bilopillia. Russia said last month that its forces had fully reclaimed the Kursk region, nearly nine months after Kyiv's lightning incursion captured more than 100 settlements there and promised to hand Ukraine a bargaining chip in possible negotiations. Ukrainian officials claimed fighting in Kursk was still ongoing. Russian shelling, drones and airs trikes killed at least five other civilians on Friday and overnight across Ukraine's Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions, according to local officials there. Russian forces overnight also launched 62 drones, Ukraine's air force reported. It said 36 of the drones were shot down and six more veered off course. The talks in Istanbul on Friday ended after less than two hours without a ceasefire, although both sides agreed on exchange of 1,000 PoWs each, according to the heads of both delegations, in what would be their biggest such swap. Ukraine's intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on Ukrainian TV on Saturday the exchange could happen as early as next week. But the Kremlin has pushed back against a proposal by Ukraine and its Western allies for a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement. Mr Zelensky said he had discussed the outcome of the talks with Mr Trump and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Poland. In a post on X from a European leadership meeting in Albania on Friday, he urged 'tough sanctions' against Moscow if it rejects 'a full and unconditional ceasefire and an end to killings'.
North Wales Chronicle
17-05-2025
- Politics
- North Wales Chronicle
Trump plans call with Putin after Russian drone hits bus in Ukraine
Mr Trump said that the call with Mr Putin will be about stopping what he called the 'bloodbath' in Ukraine. 'Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end,' Mr Trump wrote in a post on his social networking site, Truth Social. His remarks came less than a day after the first direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv in years failed to yield a ceasefire. Mr Putin had spurned Mr Zelensky's offer to meet face-to-face in Turkey after he himself proposed negotiations in Istanbul – although not at the presidential level – as an alternative to the 'full and unconditional' ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including the US. Earlier on Saturday, top diplomats from Russia and the US held the latest in a series of phone calls, shortly after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Vatican could be a venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. In Ukraine, a north-eastern town declared a period of mourning after a Russian drone hit a bus evacuating civilians from front-line areas, killing nine people, Ukrainian officials said. The strike came hours after the Russian and Ukrainian delegations left Istanbul after agreeing to a large exchange of prisoners of war (PoWs). Seven people were also injured in the attack in Bilopillia, a town around six miles from Russia's border, three of them seriously, according to local governor Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine's national police. Spoke with @POTUS together with President Macron, Federal Chancellor Merz, Prime Ministers Starmer and Tusk. We discussed the meeting in Istanbul. Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance.… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 16, 2025 Mr Zelensky described the attack as 'deliberate killing of civilians', adding in a post on the Telegram messaging app that 'Russians could scarcely not realise what kind of vehicle they were hitting'. The local media outlet Suspilne said the passengers on the bus were being evacuated from the town when the strike happened. Authorities are working to identify some of the victims, most of them elderly women. Mr Zelensky lamented the missed opportunity from Friday's peace talks, saying that 'Ukraine has long proposed this — a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives.' 'Russia only retains the ability to continue killing,' Mr Zelensky added. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was 'appalled' by the attack. 'If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,' he wrote on X. Russia's Defence Ministry claimed its forces hit a military staging area in the Sumy region on Saturday morning, some 50 31 miles south east of Bilopillia, without mentioning any other attacks there. According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank, Ukrainian forces have been inching forward into Russian territory in the Kursk region, just north of Bilopillia. Russia said last month that its forces had fully reclaimed the Kursk region, nearly nine months after Kyiv's lightning incursion captured more than 100 settlements there and promised to hand Ukraine a bargaining chip in possible negotiations. Ukrainian officials claimed fighting in Kursk was still ongoing. Russian shelling, drones and airs trikes killed at least five other civilians on Friday and overnight across Ukraine's Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions, according to local officials there. Russian forces overnight also launched 62 drones, Ukraine's air force reported. It said 36 of the drones were shot down and six more veered off course. The talks in Istanbul on Friday ended after less than two hours without a ceasefire, although both sides agreed on exchange of 1,000 PoWs each, according to the heads of both delegations, in what would be their biggest such swap. Ukraine's intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on Ukrainian TV on Saturday the exchange could happen as early as next week. But the Kremlin has pushed back against a proposal by Ukraine and its Western allies for a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement. Mr Zelensky said he had discussed the outcome of the talks with Mr Trump and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Poland. In a post on X from a European leadership meeting in Albania on Friday, he urged 'tough sanctions' against Moscow if it rejects 'a full and unconditional ceasefire and an end to killings'.
Powys County Times
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Powys County Times
Trump plans call with Putin after Russian drone hits bus in Ukraine
Donald Trump has said he plans to speak by phone on Monday to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, followed by Ukraine's president and Nato allies, about ending what he called a 'bloodbath'. 'HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END,' Mr Trump wrote in a post on his social networking site, Truth Social. His remarks came less than a day after the first direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv in years failed to yield a ceasefire. Mr Putin spurned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's offer to meet face-to-face in Turkey after he himself proposed negotiations in Istanbul 'without preconditions' as an alternative to the 'full and unconditional' ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, including the US. Earlier on Saturday, a Russian drone hit a bus evacuating civilians from a front-line area in Ukraine's north-eastern Sumy region, killing nine people. The strike came hours after the Russian and Ukrainian delegations left Istanbul after agreeing to a large exchange of prisoners of war (PoWs). Seven people were also injured in the attack in Bilopillia, a town around six miles from Russia's border, three of them seriously, according to local governor Oleh Hryhorov and Ukraine's national police. Mr Zelensky described the attack as 'deliberate killing of civilians'. adding in a post on the Telegram messaging app that 'Russians could scarcely not realise what kind of vehicle they were hitting'. The local media outlet Suspilne said the passengers on the bus were being evacuated from the town when the strike happened. Authorities are working to identify some of the victims, most of them elderly women. Mr Zelensky lamented the missed opportunity from Friday's peace talks, saying that 'Ukraine has long proposed this — a full and unconditional ceasefire in order to save lives.' Spoke with @POTUS together with President Macron, Federal Chancellor Merz, Prime Ministers Starmer and Tusk. We discussed the meeting in Istanbul. Ukraine is ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace, and it is important that the world holds a strong stance.… — Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 16, 2025 'Russia only retains the ability to continue killing,' Mr Zelensky added. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was 'appalled' by the attack. 'If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,' he wrote on X. Russia's Defence Ministry claimed its forces hit a military staging area in the Sumy region on Saturday morning, some 50 31 miles south east of Bilopillia, without mentioning any other attacks there. According to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War think tank, Ukrainian forces have been inching forward into Russian territory in the Kursk region, just north of Bilopillia. Russia said last month that its forces had fully reclaimed the Kursk region, nearly nine months after Kyiv's lightning incursion captured more than 100 settlements there and promised to hand Ukraine a bargaining chip in possible negotiations. Ukrainian officials claimed fighting in Kursk was still ongoing. Russian shelling, drones and airs trikes killed at least five other civilians on Friday and overnight across Ukraine's Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions, according to local officials there. Russian forces overnight also launched 62 drones, Ukraine's air force reported. It said 36 of the drones were shot down and six more veered off course. The talks in Istanbul on Friday ended after less than two hours without a ceasefire, although both sides agreed on exchange of 1,000 PoWs each, according to the heads of both delegations, in what would be their biggest such swap. Ukraine's intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on Ukrainian TV on Saturday the exchange could happen as early as next week. But the Kremlin has pushed back against a proposal by Ukraine and its Western allies for a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement. Mr Zelenskyy said he had discussed the outcome of the talks with Mr Trump and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Poland. In a post on X from a European leadership meeting in Albania on Friday, he urged 'tough sanctions' against Moscow if it rejects 'a full and unconditional ceasefire and an end to killings'.
