Russia and Ukraine exchange more bodies of war dead, Kremlin aide says
Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia's delegation at those peace talks, said in a statement on Telegram that Moscow had handed over the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers and had received 19 bodies of its own fallen soldiers in return.
The RIA state news agency reported, citing a source, that Russia plans to return the bodies of 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers and that the exchange on Thursday was the beginning of that process.
The warring sides have carried out a series of swaps of captured troops and the remains of dead soldiers since renewing peace talks in Istanbul in May following a gap of more than three years.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Global moral consensus is just wishful thinking
In his opinion piece (From Gaza to Ukraine, peace always seems just out of reach – and the reason isn't only political, 20 July), Simon Tisdall says 'ending major conflicts, and easing the suffering of millions, is a moral imperative that demands a determined collective response from all concerned. That way lies peace. That way lies salvation'. If that is really the case then all hope is lost. There already is a 'determined collective response' from all concerned, which is a pledge to fight to the bitter end, whatever the cost to their victims in lives or suffering. For Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, freedom from moral constraints, incorporating manifestly immoral behaviour and open contempt for international law, is an existential necessity. To expect either of them to abandon the territorial ambitions on which they have staked their political futures lies somewhere between naivety and sheer wishful thinking. Given that, all talk of 'moral imperatives', without enforceable international law when their noble aspirations are breached, is no more than impotent bleating from the sidelines. The treaty to establish the international criminal court in 1998 failed to sign up China, India or the Gulf states. Indeed the map of those countries that have ratified the ICC looks suspiciously like the former Commonwealth, with the addition of South America. More significant are those countries who signed up to the treaty, but which have refused to ratify it, for various stated reasons, but ineluctably because their current politicians need immunity from its rulings – the former superpowers US and Russia, and Israel. None of their leaders could survive in office if they were made internationally accountable to enforceable laws with a clear moral basis. Sadly but paradoxically, the only people with the political and military clout to bring the war criminals to justice in the name of morality turn out to be the ones perpetuating the war crimes. Alex WatsonStroud, Gloucestershire Simon Tisdall rightly argues that peace remains elusive not just due to geopolitics, but a collapse in global moral consensus. Yet we must ask: has that consensus ever truly been global – or has it been curated through western lenses? Britain recently announced an inquiry into violent policing at Orgreave in 1984 and the subsequent collapsed prosecution of 95 miners, but still refuses to apologise for Jallianwala Bagh, where hundreds of unarmed Indians were massacred under imperial command in 1919. Where is the moral clarity? Tisdall speaks of the 'rules-based international order'. But when Donald Trump bombed Iranian nuclear sites – installations once fostered by Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace programme – where were the rules? Would the same be done to Pakistan or China? The west routinely turns a blind eye when its allies commit horrors. Yes, Russians ignore Ukraine. But did the UK not join the US in Iraq, a war based on phantom weapons of mass destruction? Have we ever truly atoned for the destruction of Falluja, or the millions displaced in Afghanistan? I agree that peace demands moral revitalisation. But that renewal must begin at home: in Washington, London, Paris. A world that arms first and negotiates never cannot preach morality. Diplomacy has been replaced by drone strikes, and summits by air raids. The UN has become a mute witness, bypassed by the very powers that once built it. Until we stop dividing the world into 'worthy victims' and 'collateral damage', there will be no peace. There is no lesser life. And there is no moral order unless it applies to all. Let truth precede justice. And only then will peace KalyanasundaramChennai, India Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Russian Navy Day parade cancelled for ‘security reasons'
Russia's annual Navy Day parade has been cancelled for 'security reasons'. The large-scale, televised parade, due to take place on Sunday, usually features a flotilla of warships and military vessels sailing down the Neva River and is attended by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Russia has not released the specifics of the threat or concern, but Ukrainian drones targeted St Petersburg on Sunday, where the parade was due to take place, forcing the airport to close for five hours. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said: '[The cancellation] has to do with the general situation. Security reasons are of utmost importance.' It is the first time the parade has been cancelled since its inception in 2017, according to state media. In 2024, Russia suspected Ukraine would target the parade, which prompted organisers to reduce the scale of the procession. Putin arrived at the city's historic naval headquarters on Sunday by patrol speed boat, from where he followed drills involving more than 150 vessels and 15,000 military personnel in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans and Baltic and Caspian Seas. 'Today, we are marking this holiday in a working setting, we are inspecting the combat readiness of the fleet,' Putin said in a video address. The parade was meant to be the highlight of Russia's Navy Day, which falls on the last Sunday of July each year and honours the country's sailors. The Russian Defence Ministry announced on Sunday that air defence units downed 291 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones, below a record 524 drones downed in attacks on May 7, ahead of Russia's Victory Day parade on May 9. A woman was injured by falling debris, on Sunday, when 10 drones were downed in the Leningrad region surrounding St Petersburg, Alexander Drozdenko, its governor, said. Pulkovo airport was closed during the attack, with 57 flights delayed and 22 diverted to other airports. It resumed operations later on Sunday.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Ukraine war briefing: Drones hit Russian electronic warfare plant and disrupt railway and air travel
Ukraine's drone forces were on the attack against Russian strategic targets on Saturday and into Sunday. Drones hit the Signal radio and electronic warfare equipment plant in the Stavropol region, an official from Ukraine's SBU security service told Reuters. Two facilities at the Signal plant in the city of Stavropol, about 540km (335 miles) from the Ukrainian border, were damaged. Videos online showed an explosion and a large column of dark smoke rising into the sky. The plant was one of Russia's leading producers of electronic warfare equipment, including radar, radio navigation equipment, and remote control radio equipment, the official said. 'Each such attack stops production processes and reduces the enemy's military potential. This work will continue.' Russia's civil aviation authority said it again had to shut down an airport as Ukrainian drones attacked. Rosaviatsia said it suspended flights soon after midnight on Sunday at the airport serving the city of Volgograd, which is the administrative centre of the broader Volgograd region. Ukrainian drones also hit a railway power supply in the Volgograd region, the administration of the region in Russia's south said on Sunday. Air raid alerts were introduced in several other regions in Russia's west and south, warning of Ukrainian drone attacks, according to posts by regional officials. Drones again targeted Moscow, said the mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, and an industrial facility in the Penza oblast south-east of the capital, according to the region's governor, Oleg Melnichenko. In the Rostov region, officials said Ukrainian drones killed two people. Ukraine's regions of Dnipro in the south and Sumy in the north-east came under combined rocket and drone attack into Saturday, local officials reported. The head of the Dnipro regional administration, Serhii Lysak, said at least two people died and five were wounded. In the city of Dnipro, a multi-storey building and business were damaged and outside the city a fire engulfed a shopping centre. In Sumy, the military administration said three people were injured. Russian drones hit a central square in Sumy city, and damaged the building of the regional administration. Kharkiv sustained an intense aerial bombardment with Ukraine's state emergency service reporting six people were hurt, including four rescuers wounded in a 'double tap' where a second attack targeted emergency workers trying to help the victims of the first. According to Ukraine's air force, Russia launched 208 drones and 27 missiles overnight into Saturday. It said according to preliminary data, air defences and electronic warfare took down or intercepted 183 drones and 17 missiles, but hits from 10 missiles and 25 drones were recorded in nine locations. Russia's defence ministry claimed its forces had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine: Zelenyi Hai in the Donetsk region and Maliivka just inside the Dnipropetrovsk region. The Ukrainian military's general staff mentioned Zelenyi Hai as one of several frontline areas that had come under Russian attack 11 times over the past 24 hours. It said Maliivka was one of several villages where 10 Russian attacks had been halted. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had identified Pokrovsk as an area requiring 'special attention' due to constant attack. A military spokesperson, Viktor Trehubov, told national television that Russian forces were attacking Pokrovsk in 'a small torrent … that simply does not stop'. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had recorded 'successful actions' in Sumy. The Reuters news agency, which reported on the developments, could not independently confirm battlefield accounts from either side. Russia's defence ministry on Saturday claimed that it struck military facilities in Ukraine that 'manufacture components for missile weapons, as well as produce ammunition and explosives'. The claim could not be independently verified. Zelenskyy posted that that 'there can be absolutely no silence in response to such strikes, and Ukrainian long-range drones ensure this. Russian military enterprises, Russian logistics, Russian airports must feel that the Russian war has real consequences for them.' An Indian firm that shipped $1.4m worth of an explosive compound with military uses to Russia said on Saturday that it complies with Indian rules and the substance was for civilian industrial purposes. A Reuters investigation found that HMX, also called octogen, was sent to two Russian explosives manufacturers despite the threat of international sanctions. Ukraine's drones have attacked the factory of one of the Russian companies after security services linked it to Russia's military. The Indian company involved emailed Reuters saying its shipment was 'for industrial activity and it's a civil explosive'. The US government has identified HMX as 'critical for Russia's war effort'. It is widely used in missile and torpedo warheads, rocket motors, exploding projectiles and plastic-bonded explosives for advanced military systems, according to the Pentagon's Defense Technical Information Center and related defense research programmes. The compound also has some limited civilian applications in mining and other industrial activities.
