Russia and Ukraine exchanged prisoners of war (POWs) on Saturday, the Russian ministry for defence said, and Russia handed over the bodies of 1,200 dead Ukrainian soldiers to Kyiv.
The exchanges are part of agreements reached by the warring sides during talks in Istanbul earlier this month. Ukraine earlier on Saturday confirmed it had received the bodies of its soldiers killed in action.
However, Russian state media reported, citing sources, that Moscow had not received any of its war dead back from Kyiv, echoing a statement Russia made on Friday, when it said it had returned the bodies of 1,200 slain Ukrainian soldiers and received none of its own.
The Russian ministry of defence did not say how many POWs were involved in the swap with Ukraine on Saturday, but it posted video showing its soldiers holding Russian flags and cheering before boarding a bus.
The Russian soldiers are in Belarus, where they are receiving medical treatment before transfer back to Russia, the defence ministry said.
It comes as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces have stopped Russian troops advancing in the northeastern Sumy region and are now battling along the border to regain control.
In remarks released for publication by his office on Saturday, Mr Zelenskiy said that Moscow has amassed about 53,000 troops in the direction of Sumy.
“We are levelling the position. The fighting there is along the border. You should understand that the enemy has been stopped there. And the maximum depth at which the fighting takes place is 7km from the border,” Mr Zelenskiy said.
Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.
Russia’s troops have been focusing their assaults in the eastern Donetsk region, but since the start of the month, they have intensified their attacks in the northeast, announcing plans to create a so-called “buffer zone” in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
The Russian war in Ukraine is in its fourth year but it has intensified in recent weeks.
Ukraine conducted a drone attack that took out multiple aircraft inside Russia and also hit the bridge connecting Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula using underwater explosives.
Mr Zelenskiy said that the Ukrainian troops had maintained their defensive lines along more than 1,000km of the frontline. He also dismissed Moscow’s claims that Russian troops had crossed the administrative border of the Ukrainian central region of Dnipropetrovsk.
Mr Zelenskiy said that Russia was sending small assault groups “to get one foot on the administrative border” and make a picture or a video but these attacks were repelled.
Dnipropetrovsk region borders three regions that are partially occupied by Russia – Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia now controls about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Mr Zelenskiy acknowledged that Ukraine was unable to regain all of its territory by military force and reiterated his pleas for stronger sanctions on Russia to force Moscow into negotiations to end the war. – Reuters
