Russia and Ukraine announced on Saturday that they had exchanged 206 prisoners, including Russian soldiers captured during the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk border region.
The Russian military also claimed to have captured a village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where it continues to advance against kyiv’s outnumbered and less well-equipped troops.
On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 103 Russian servicemen taken prisoner in the Kursk region had been exchanged for the same number of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Emirati mediation
According to the Russian ministry, the United Arab Emirates provided “mediation efforts” to allow this exchange to take place. Emirati diplomacy hailed it as a “success”.
On Telegram, Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that the exchange had allowed the release of Ukrainian soldiers and police officers who had defended kyiv, Donetsk, Mariupol and its Azovstal plant, as well as the regions of Lugansk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
The day before, Mr. Zelensky had announced that 49 Ukrainian prisoners had returned from Russia. On August 24, Moscow and kyiv had carried out, also with the mediation of the United Arab Emirates, an exchange of 230 prisoners including Russian soldiers captured in the Kursk region.
In a separate statement, the Russian military said Saturday it was continuing “offensive operations” in the Kursk region. On Thursday, it announced for the first time that it had regained ground there in a counterattack.
And on Saturday it claimed the capture of a new village in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk, that of Jelanne Perche, in the district of Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub threatened by Moscow.
On Telegram, the head of the Ukrainian administration of the region, Vadym Filachkin, reported on Saturday morning the death of four civilians during Russian bombings.
On the defensive for months on the front, Ukraine launched a surprise attack on August 6 in the Russian region of Kursk, where it seized several hundred square kilometers.
She hoped to force Moscow to redeploy its troops in the Donetsk region and thus slow their advances.
“Poorly controlled escalation”
On the diplomatic front, Volodymyr Zelensky is demanding that his allies allow him to strike deep into Russian soil at military targets, such as air bases from which planes take off to bomb Ukraine.
But so far, the West, led by the United States, has been hesitant to give a possible green light to kyiv’s use of long-range missiles, fearing that such a decision could be seen by Russia as an escalation.
Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that if the West allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory with longer-range missiles, it would mean that “NATO countries are at war with Russia.”
A senior Russian diplomatic official, Sergei Ryabkov, assured on Saturday that the West had made “decisions some time ago” to allow kyiv to strike deep into Russia.
“Washington and London are moving the situation towards an uncontrolled escalation,” he said, quoted by the TASS agency.
Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, accused his allies on Friday of being “afraid” to raise the possibility of shooting down Russian drones and missiles in Ukrainian skies themselves, while his country is facing numerous air attacks.
kyiv said on Saturday that it had shot down another 72 Russian drones during the night.
While welcoming British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Washington, US President Joe Biden said on Friday that he did not “think much about Putin”, commenting on the Russian leader’s threats about a possible war between Russia and NATO.
Joe Biden said Tuesday that the United States was “working” to allow Ukraine to use longer-range missiles against Russia.
Washington currently allows kyiv to strike only Russian targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and some in Russian border regions directly linked to military operations.
According to British media, Joe Biden, who fears a nuclear conflict, is ready to allow Ukraine to deploy British and French missiles using American technology, but not the American missiles themselves.