The most recent prisoner trade between Russia and Ukraine is scheduled for subsequent week as already agreed with Russian officers, Ukraine’s intelligence chief has stated, rebuking Moscow’s allegation that Kyiv had indefinitely postponed the swap.
“The beginning of repatriation actions based mostly on outcomes and negotiations in Istanbul is scheduled for subsequent week, as authorised individuals on Tuesday had been knowledgeable,” navy intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov stated in an announcement on Sunday.
“All the pieces is transferring in keeping with plan, regardless of the enemy’s soiled data recreation”.
That barbed remark adopted Russia’s pointed accusation on Saturday that Ukraine had indefinitely postponed the return of the our bodies of 6,000 troopers on all sides and the trade of wounded and severely unwell prisoners of conflict and prisoners of conflict underneath the age of 25.
Ukraine was “fastidiously adhering to the agreements reached in Istanbul”, Budanov countered, referring to a second spherical of negotiations that came about within the Turkish metropolis on Monday.
In the meantime, Russia stated that it introduced greater than 1,000 our bodies of slain Ukrainian troopers to the trade level whereas additionally handing over to Ukraine a primary listing of 640 prisoners of conflict, however that Ukrainian negotiators weren’t on the swap location. Ukraine denied the allegations and stated Moscow ought to cease “enjoying soiled video games”.
Melinda Haring, a non-resident senior fellow on the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Middle, advised Al Jazeera that it’s a superb signal that the method appears to now be again on monitor.
“This can be a large deal, as a result of the prisoner trade would be the largest that Ukraine and Russia have engaged in to date. And up to now, these exchanges have gone off fairly seamlessly,” Haring stated. “So the very fact that there have been twin narratives about this in the course of a giant push at getting the Russians and the Ukrainians to agree on a peace negotiation was actually troubling.
“POW [prisoner of war] exchanges are thought-about to be low-confidence methods of constructing belief in a much bigger negotiation. So the truth that there was friction over this, and I consider it was on the Russian aspect, reveals that there’s not loads of curiosity in an precise peace negotiation on Moscow’s phrases,” she stated.
The 2 sides aren’t any nearer to any non permanent ceasefire settlement as a concrete step in direction of ending the battle regardless of some preliminary momentum from the USA, although US President Donald Trump seems to be dropping persistence in his marketing campaign for a ceasefire, even suggesting the 2 be left to combat longer like children in a park earlier than they be pulled aside.
Nor has Trump adopted Ukraine’s European Union and United Kingdom allies in imposing harsher sanctions on Russia.
Combating continues
The duelling narratives and fading diplomatic momentum stay the backdrop to the grinding conflict, now in its fourth yr, as each side ratchet up assaults in opposition to one another.
Within the early hours of Sunday, Russia stated it shot down 10 Ukrainian drones close to the capital, Moscow, forcing two key airports to droop their actions. That got here every week after Ukraine performed an audacious and unprecedented drone operation concentrating on nuclear-capable navy plane in a number of airbases deep inside Russia, together with in Siberia. Kyiv claims it destroyed 14 p.c of Russia’s strategic bombers.
However Ukrainians have additionally been underneath heavy assault. Previously days, Russian forces have pounded the nation, hitting a number of places and killing greater than a dozen civilians over the weekend, with Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, Kharkiv, the worst hit.
They’ve additionally made important advances on the bottom. Russia says its forces have entered Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk area for the primary time because the conflict started three years in the past. The Russian Defence Ministry stated tank items have reached the western border of the area and are persevering with their offensive. The commercial area is residence to a few million individuals and consists of the main metropolis of Dnipro. Ukraine has not but commented.
“It’s important as a result of the area of Dnipropetrovsk shouldn’t be one of many areas that Russia sees as now being a part of the Russian Federation after the referendums that had been held again in 2022,” stated Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv.
“Putin sees Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhia as being a part of Russia – Dnipropetrovsk shouldn’t be a part of that plan. So if certainly these forces are crossing over into Dnipropetrovsk, that’s massively important”.
