The prisoner exchange between Russian and Ukrainian forces will allow more than 100 Ukrainian prisoners of war to be returned to their families.Saturday's exchange, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, involved 206 military personnel from both countries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that of the 103 Ukrainian “fighters” released, 82 were soldiers and privates and 21 were officers, including police and border guards. In return, Ukraine released more than 100 Russian military personnel held prisoner in the Kursk border region since the Ukrainian military invaded. This is Ukraine's second exchange since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and took place after mediated negotiations.
Ukrainian regional governors said four Russian artillery shelling attacks in southern, southeastern and eastern Ukraine on Saturday killed at least seven people.Russian artillery shells hit an agricultural facility in the town of Khryai Pole in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhia Oblast, killing three people, Governor Ivan Fedorov said. A missile attack outside Odessa killed a man and a woman and wounded a 65-year-old woman, the Odessa Oblast governor said. One person was killed in artillery fire in the southern Kherson Oblast, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. In Kharkiv Oblast, the body of a 72-year-old woman was pulled from rubble after Russian forces attacked the village of Pisky Radkivski, Oblast Governor Oleg Shnievbov said. Details could not be independently confirmed.
Britain and the United States have expressed concern that Russia may have shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles for bombing Ukraine.At a summit in Washington DC on Friday, British Prime Minister Starmer and US President Joe Biden acknowledged that the two administrations are stepping up military cooperation as Iran advances its efforts to enrich enough uranium to achieve its long-held goal of building a nuclear bomb. British intelligence sources said concerns were raised about Iran's nuclear technology deals as part of Moscow's deepening alliance with Tehran. But it is unclear at this stage how much technical knowledge Iran has to build a nuclear weapon, and how quickly it could do so. Iran denies it is trying to build a nuclear bomb.
Iran's foreign minister said Tehran was open to diplomacy to resolve the conflict but would not respond to “threats and pressure,” state media reported Saturday. Abbas Araqchi's comments came a day after an EU diplomat said the EU was considering new sanctions targeting Iran's aviation sector following reports that Iran had supplied ballistic missiles to Russia in its war with Ukraine.
Keir Starmer has been urged by former British defence secretaries and former prime ministers to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles on Russian territory without US support, according to the Sunday Times. The call came from Prime Minister Boris Johnson and five former Conservative defence secretaries – Grant Shapps, Ben Wallace, Gavin Williamson, Penny Mordaunt and Liam Fox. They warned Starmer that “any further delay would embolden Putin”, The Sunday Times reported. Starmer and Joe Biden held talks in Washington on Friday about whether to allow Kiev to use long-range missiles against targets inside Russia. No decision was announced.
Joe Biden will use the remaining four months of his term “to put Ukraine in the best position to win,” his national security adviser said. Jake Sullivan. Biden plans to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in late September to discuss aid for Ukraine, Sullivan said. “President Zelensky has said that ultimately this war has to end with negotiations, and they need to respond forcefully in those negotiations,” Sullivan said, adding that Ukraine will decide when to enter into negotiations with Russia.
Chief Kirillo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency GUR, said: said North Korea's military aid to Russia It is Russia's support that is of greatest concern on the battlefield, compared to the support provided by Moscow's other allies. “Russia supplies a huge amount of artillery shells, which are extremely important to Russia,” he said, noting that such supplies lead to increased fighting on the battlefield. Ukraine, the United States, other countries and independent analysts say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is supporting Russia in its war with Ukraine by supplying missiles and ammunition in exchange for economic and other military support from Moscow.
Dmitry Medvedev, a senior Russian official and former president, said Saturday that Russia could destroy the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, with non-nuclear weapons to counter Ukraine's use of long-range Western missiles. Medvedev argued that Moscow already had formal grounds to use nuclear weapons since Ukraine invaded Russia's Kursk region, but said it could also use other weapons technology to turn Kiev into a “giant melting point” if the Kremlin's patience ran out.
