The most recent prisoner alternate 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 primarily based on outcomes and negotiations in Istanbul is scheduled for subsequent week, as authorised individuals on Tuesday have been knowledgeable,” navy intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov stated in an announcement on Sunday.
“Every thing is shifting in keeping with plan, regardless of the enemy’s soiled data sport”.
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 both sides and the alternate of wounded and significantly in poor health prisoners of battle and prisoners of battle 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 happened 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 alternate level whereas additionally handing over to Ukraine a primary checklist of 640 prisoners of battle, 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 Heart, advised Al Jazeera that it’s a superb signal that the method appears to now be again on monitor.
“It is a massive deal, as a result of the prisoner alternate 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 actual 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 of to be low-confidence methods of constructing belief in a much bigger negotiation. So the truth that there was friction over this, and I imagine it was on the Russian facet, exhibits that there’s not lots 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 US, although US President Donald Trump seems to be shedding endurance in his marketing campaign for a ceasefire, even suggesting the 2 be left to battle longer like kids 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.
Preventing continues
The duelling narratives and fading diplomatic momentum stay the backdrop to the grinding battle, now in its fourth 12 months, 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 per 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 % of Russia’s strategic bombers.
However Ukrainians have additionally been underneath heavy assault. Up to now days, Russian forces have pounded the nation, hitting a number of areas and killing greater than a dozen civilians over the weekend, with Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, Kharkiv, the worst hit.
They’ve additionally made vital advances on the bottom. Russia says its forces have entered Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk area for the primary time because the battle 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 economic area is dwelling to a few million folks and consists of the most important metropolis of Dnipro. Ukraine has not but commented.
“It’s vital as a result of the area of Dnipropetrovsk is just not one of many areas that Russia sees as now being a part of the Russian Federation after the referendums that have 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 is just not a part of that plan. So if certainly these forces are crossing over into Dnipropetrovsk, that’s massively vital”.