Russia Aims to Create ‘Buffer Zones’ in Ukraine, Kremlin Confirms:
More prisoner swaps followed the most recent negotiations in Istanbul, but no progress was made towards bringing the war to a conclusion.
As combat continues in the aftermath of a third round of peace talks that once again failed to produce any progress towards a ceasefire, Russian soldiers are attempting to establish “buffer zones” along the Ukrainian border, according to the Kremlin.
This is the fourth year of the conflict. Following a 40-minute discussion between delegations in Istanbul on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov made the remarks during a briefing on Thursday, indicating that Russia has no plans to de-escalate its war on Ukraine.
Negotiators in the Turkish city talked about more prisoner exchanges, but they disagreed on a ceasefire and a suggested in-person meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which the latter had requested.
Vladimir Medinsky, the leader of the Russian delegation, announced at a press conference in Istanbul after the negotiations that an exchange of prisoners had taken place on the border between Ukraine and Belarus, with roughly 250 individuals returned to each side.
Over 1,000 Ukrainians came home. In a social media post, Zelenskyy confirmed the exchange, stating that more than 1,000 Ukrainian prisoners had been returned in accordance with the agreement following Wednesday’s prisoner swap, which was the ninth step of an exchange process decided upon by the parties in Istanbul.
“This means the joy of embracing their loved ones again for a thousand families,” Zelenskyy said, noting that many of the inmates had been held captive for longer than three years.
“It’s critical that the conversations continue and that our people return home,” he stated. “We will keep exerting every effort to guarantee that all of our citizens return from captivity.
” Attacks using drones and missiles Russia and Ukraine resumed their airstrikes on one another after the brief summit in Istanbul. Russian drones and missiles targeted Ukrainian land overnight, and Russian casualties were reported.
In a social media post on Thursday, Zelenskyy claimed that Russia killed three people in the Kharkiv region overnight when it launched 103 attack drones and four missiles at Ukraine.
He stated that a 9-year-old child was among the more than ten other people injured in Cherkasy. He pointed out that Ukraine’s team had reaffirmed their “proposal for an immediate and full ceasefire” in Istanbul only a day earlier. ”
In retaliation, Russian drones targeted apartment complexes in Cherkasy, residential buildings and the Pryvoz market in Odesa, energy infrastructure in the Kharkiv region and a university gym in Zaporizhzhia,” he claimed.
He went on to say, “We will do everything in our power to make diplomacy effective.” “However, Russia needs to put an end to this conflict.”
A woman in the Adler area in the resort city of Sochi was killed by falling drone debris, according to emergency personnel in the Krasnodar region on the Black Sea in Russia. Another woman was gravely hurt, according to the Reuters news agency.
Source: Al Jazeera
