Ukraine says latest POWs swap with Russia to go ahead after duelling words

Kyiv says the agreed speech with Moscow of captured soldiers and bodies volition commencement ‘next week’ aft hold accusations are made.

The latest captive speech betwixt Russia and Ukraine is scheduled for adjacent week arsenic already agreed with Russian officials, Ukraine’s quality main has said, rebuking Moscow’s allegation that Kyiv had indefinitely postponed the swap.

“The commencement of repatriation activities based connected results and negotiations successful Istanbul is scheduled for adjacent week, arsenic authorised persons connected Tuesday were informed,” subject quality main Kyrylo Budanov said successful a connection connected Sunday.

“Everything is moving according to plan, contempt the enemy’s soiled accusation game”.

That barbed remark followed Russia’s pointed accusation connected Saturday that Ukraine had indefinitely postponed the instrumentality of the bodies of 6,000 soldiers connected each broadside and the speech of wounded and earnestly sick prisoners of warfare and prisoners of warfare nether the property of 25.

Ukraine was “carefully adhering to the agreements reached successful Istanbul”, Budanov countered, referring to a 2nd circular of negotiations that took spot successful the Turkish metropolis connected Monday.

Meanwhile, Russia said that it brought much than 1,000 bodies of slain Ukrainian soldiers to the speech constituent portion besides handing implicit to Ukraine a archetypal database of 640 prisoners of war, but that Ukrainian negotiators were not astatine the swap location. Ukraine denied the allegations and said Moscow should halt “playing soiled games”.

Melinda Haring, a non-resident elder chap astatine the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told Al Jazeera that it’s a bully motion that the process seems to present beryllium backmost connected track.

“This is simply a large deal, due to the fact that the captive speech volition beryllium the largest that Ukraine and Russia person engaged successful truthful far. And successful the past, these exchanges person gone disconnected beauteous seamlessly,” Haring said. “So the information that determination were dual narratives astir this successful the mediate of a large propulsion astatine getting the Russians and the Ukrainians to hold connected a bid dialog was truly troubling.

“POW [prisoner of war] exchanges are considered to beryllium low-confidence ways of gathering spot successful a bigger negotiation. So the information that determination was friction implicit this, and I judge it was connected the Russian side, shows that there’s not a batch of involvement successful an existent bid dialog connected Moscow’s terms,” she said.

The 2 sides are nary person to immoderate impermanent ceasefire statement arsenic a factual measurement towards ending the struggle contempt immoderate archetypal momentum from the United States, though US President Donald Trump appears to beryllium losing patience successful his run for a ceasefire, adjacent suggesting the 2 beryllium near to combat longer like children successful a park earlier they beryllium pulled apart.

Nor has Trump followed Ukraine’s European Union and United Kingdom allies successful imposing harsher sanctions connected Russia.

Fighting continues

The duelling narratives and fading diplomatic momentum stay the backdrop to the grinding war, present successful its 4th year, arsenic some sides ratchet up attacks against each other.

In the aboriginal hours of Sunday, Russia said it shot down 10 Ukrainian drones adjacent the capital, Moscow, forcing 2 cardinal airports to suspend their activities. That came a week aft Ukraine conducted an audacious and unprecedented drone operation targeting nuclear-capable subject craft successful aggregate airbases heavy wrong Russia, including successful Siberia. Kyiv claims it destroyed 14 percent of Russia’s strategical bombers.

But Ukrainians person besides been nether dense attack. In the past days, Russian forces person pounded the country, hitting aggregate locations and sidesplitting much than a twelve civilians implicit the weekend, with Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, the worst hit.

They person besides made important advances connected the ground. Russia says its forces person entered Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk portion for the archetypal clip since the warfare began 3 years ago. The Russian Defence Ministry said vessel units person reached the occidental borderline of the portion and are continuing their offensive. The concern portion is location to 3 cardinal radical and includes the large metropolis of Dnipro. Ukraine has not yet commented.

“It is important due to the fact that the portion of Dnipropetrovsk is not 1 of the regions that Russia sees arsenic present being portion of the Russian Federation aft the referendums that were held backmost successful 2022,” said Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv.

“Putin sees Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhia arsenic being portion of Russia – Dnipropetrovsk is not portion of that plan. So if so these forces are crossing implicit into Dnipropetrovsk, that is hugely significant”.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies