(Kyiv) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday vowed “retaliation” against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and signing into law a law banning the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the same day his country celebrates independence from the Soviet Union.
Moscow and Kyiv also announced a prisoner of war exchange involving 230 people – 115 for each side – mediated by the United Arab Emirates.
On August 6, Ukrainian forces took the fighting to their adversary’s soil by launching an offensive of unprecedented scale in the Russian border region of Kursk.
They have seized dozens of towns there, while Russian troops continue to advance in Donbass, eastern Ukraine.
Russia wanted to “destroy us,” but the war has “returned home,” Zelensky told his compatriots in a video recorded in a forested area of the border region of Sumy, from where Kyiv launched its surprise offensive into Russia.
PHOTO UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appears on a screen as he delivers a speech during the country’s Independence Day celebrations on August 24 in Kyiv.
Kyiv “surprises once again,” Zelenky said, promising that Russia “will learn what retaliation is.”
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin met with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to the Kremlin, they discussed “the fight against enemy forces invading the Kursk region and measures taken to destroy them.”
These terms contrast with previous statements which tended to minimise the Ukrainian operation.
Prisoners of war released
Despite these warlike declarations, Russia and Ukraine announced a new prisoner exchange involving 230 people, including soldiers who had been captured during the surprise Kursk offensive.
According to Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Loubinets, 82 of the 115 people rescued by Kyiv are soldiers who took part in the defense of the Azovstal plant during the siege of Mariupol in 2022, a major military feat in Ukraine.
Ukraine had claimed to have taken prisoner “hundreds” of Russian soldiers, including conscripts and border guards, during its operation on Russian soil, while thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are still being held by Russia.
As in previous exchanges, Saturday’s took place through the United Arab Emirates, which praised itself for being “a reliable mediator” and called for “de-escalation” as “the only way to resolve the conflict.”
Mr Zelensky took part in official independence celebrations in Kyiv’s Hagia Sophia Square on Saturday, alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, two major supporters of his country.
PHOTO UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
From left to right: Polish President Andrzej Duda, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte attend a ceremony at Hagia Sophia Square in Kyiv on August 24.
He said on this occasion that the Ukrainian forces had successfully tested a new “missile drone”, the “Palianytsia”, “much faster and more powerful” than the drones they currently have.
On the occasion of Independence Day, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose government plans to cut military aid to Kyiv next year, reaffirmed Germany’s “continued and unwavering solidarity” with Ukraine.
European Council President Charles Michel assured X that “the day is approaching when [l’Ukraine] will be welcomed in the EU. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, assured that the “existential fight” of Kyiv against Moscow was “also existential for the EU”.
PHOTO UKRAINIAN PRESIDENCY, PROVIDED BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife Olena walk along an alley dedicated to the memory of fallen soldiers to lay flowers at the Wall of Remembrance on Ukraine’s Independence Day, August 24 in Kyiv.
Church linked to Moscow banned
Mr Zelensky also signed into law on Saturday the law banning the branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, which was long the country’s main denomination.
This branch cut ties with Moscow in 2022, but the Ukrainian authorities still consider it to be under Russian influence and have increased legal proceedings against it, leading to the imprisonment of dozens of priests.
Although this Church is losing influence in the face of the new independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church founded in 2018, it still retains thousands of parishes across the country.
While the Ukrainian military offensive launched on August 6 in the Russian region of Kursk is receiving a lot of attention because it brings hostilities to the attacker’s soil, the epicenter of the fighting remains in the Ukrainian industrial region of Donbass (East), where the Russian army has the advantage.
Russian forces are approaching Pokrovsk, a major logistics hub and a town of some 53,000 people that the authorities have called for urgent evacuation. They were less than ten kilometres from the town on Friday.
PHOTO EVGENIY MALOLETKA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A father hugs his daughter as they await evacuation in Pokrovsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, August 23.
In another major town in the region, Kostyantynivka, five people were killed and five others injured on Saturday in a Russian strike on residential areas, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office.
AFP journalists at the scene saw a young boy and his dog approach a body covered by a sheet on the side of the road and watch as rescuers rushed to remove it.
Kyiv also claimed to have struck an ammunition depot in the Voronezh region in western Russia. Local Russian authorities reported drone strikes and the evacuation of a village