President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed more “retribution” against Russia while Kyiv and Moscow announced the exchange of 230 prisoners just over two weeks into Ukraine’s surprise offensive on the Kursk region. Zelenskiy published a video of him standing in a forested area said to be near where Ukraine launched its incursion into Russia on 6 August. “What the enemy brought to our land has now returned to its home,” he said, adding that Russia would “know what retribution is”. Russia and Ukraine exchanged 115 prisoners of war from each side after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) acted as an intermediary. It is the first such exchange since Ukraine launched its Kursk raid. Russia’s defence ministry said the Russian servicemen swapped were captured in the Kursk region.
Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukraine’s operation in Kursk was a preventive strike to stop Russian attacks in the north and towards the regional city of Sumy. He told a news conference in Kyiv that the Kursk operation was difficult but he viewed its progress positively.
Ukraine said five people were killed in a Russian strike on a residential area of the eastern city of Kostyantynivka, near the front line in the Donetsk region, on Saturday. Agence France-Presse reported seeing a young boy and his dog walk up to a body, covered by a sheet, on the side of the road and watch as rescuers rushed to remove it.Ukraine has also carried out some evacuations from the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk amid fears it will fall to advancing Russian forces.
Five civilians were killed and 12 injured in Ukrainian shelling of the town of Rakitnoye in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, the regional governor said on Sunday. Among the injured were three children, Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. The reports could not be independently verified. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Gladkov said earlier that two people were wounded in a drone attack in the region.
Ukraine wants permission from the west to use long-range Storm Shadow missiles to destroy targets deep inside Russia, believing this could force Moscow into negotiating an end to the fighting. Senior figures in Kyiv have suggested that using the Anglo-French weapons in a “demonstration attack” will show the Kremlin that military sites near the capital itself could be vulnerable to direct strikes, reports Dan Sabbagh in Kyiv.
Five drones were downed over the Voronezh region in Russia’s south-west, bordering Ukraine, wounding two people, regional governor Aleksandr Gusev said. In the Bryansk region, local authorities did not report any casualties after a drone was intercepted. In the Kursk region, regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on Saturday that three missiles were shot down overnight and another four on Saturday morning.
Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate claimed to have blown up a warehouse storing 5,000 tonnes of ammunition in the Voronezh region’s Ostrogozhsky district. News outlet Astra published videos appearing to show explosions at the ammunition depot after being hit by a drone. The videos could not be independently verified. The Voronezh governor said a state of emergency was declared in the Ostrogozhsk district after drone strikes, with 200 people evacuated from one village.
Ukraine marked its 33rd independence day, setting the usual fireworks, parades and concerts aside to commemorate thousands of civilians and soldiers killed in the war with Russia. Social media was flooded with messages of gratitude and support as Ukrainians greeted each other from around the country and thanked soldiers who are on the front lines. “Independence is the silence we experience when we lose our people,” Zelenskiy declared to the nation in a video posted on Telegram. “Independence descends into the shelter during an air raid, only to endure and rise again and again to tell the enemy: ‘You will achieve nothing.’” In the capital, Kyiv, people paraded in “vyshyvankas”, colourful festive shirts. Some posed for pictures in front of the country’s blue-and-yellow flag and an “I Love Ukraine” sign that had been placed near a makeshift memorial to fallen soldiers.
Zelenskiy promoted his top army commander to a four-star general, his office said on Saturday, just weeks after Kyiv’s incursion into Kursk. Commander-in-Chief Oleksander Syrskyi, 59, who had held the rank of colonel general, was promoted to a general, the decree published on the presidential website said. Syrskyi, born in 1965 in Russia’s Vladimir region, has lived in Ukraine since the 1980s.
