Latest news with #Италия
Asharq Al-Awsat
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Russia Awaits Ukraine's Confirmation on Planned Exchange of Dead Fighters, Officials Say
Russian officials said Sunday that Moscow is still awaiting official confirmation from Ukraine that a planned exchange of 6,000 bodies of soldiers killed in action will take place, reiterating allegations that Kyiv had postponed the swap. 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, The AP news reported. 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." 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 direct talks in Istanbul on Monday that otherwise made no progress toward ending the war. 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. In response, Ukraine said that Russia was playing 'dirty games' and manipulating facts. 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.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lavrov dismisses Vatican as possible venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on May 24 cast doubt on the Vatican as a possible venue for future peace talks with Ukraine, saying the Catholic seat would not be an appropriate platform for negotiations between two Orthodox Christian nations, Reuters reported. Previously, Pope Leo XIV expressed his willingness to host the next round of peace talks in the Vatican. Several of Ukraine's partners, including the United States, have suggested that the Vatican could become a neutral platform for further negotiations. "Imagine the Vatican as a venue for negotiations," Lavrov reportedly said during a speech at the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow. 'It would be a bit inelegant for Orthodox countries to use a Catholic platform to discuss issues on how to remove the root causes (of the war)." Lavrov added that he believed "it would not be very comfortable for the Vatican itself to host delegations from two Orthodox countries in these circumstances." Ukrainian and Russian delegations met in Istanbul for peace talks on May 16, failing to reach a ceasefire agreement. During the meeting, Moscow demanded Kyiv withdraw from four Ukrainian regions it claims to have annexed, despite lacking full control over them. Ukrainian officials said the Russian delegation appeared to lack real authority and was unprepared to negotiate substantive terms. One outcome of the talks was a large-scale prisoner exchange, with 1,000 prisoners returning on each side beginning May 23. Ukraine had also proposed an immediate ceasefire and a potential face-to-face meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin — an offer Moscow declined. Zelensky met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on May 18, following the pontiff's inauguration mass. The Ukrainian leader described the pope as "a symbol of hope for peace" and said the Holy See could play an important role in ending the war. The two discussed the return of children forcibly deported by Russia and other humanitarian issues. Zelensky presented Pope Leo with an icon painted on artillery debris from the front lines — a gift meant to represent Ukrainian children affected by the war. Before becoming pope, Leo XIV denounced Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine while serving as Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru. In his 2022 interview, he described it as "a true invasion, imperialist in nature, where Russia seeks to conquer territory for reasons of power." Read also: BREAKING: Ukraine brings home 307 POWs in 2nd phase of major prisoner swap with Russia We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
