CNN
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Russia mentioned Sunday that trains carrying extra our bodies of Ukrainian troopers have been resulting from depart towards the Ukrainian border, escalating a spat with Kyiv over a prisoner of struggle swap.
“I can inform you that in simply an hour, repatriation trains carrying the our bodies of army personnel can even start to maneuver,” Russia’s Lieutenant Normal Alexander Zorin mentioned on Sunday, in keeping with Russian state information company TASS.
The switch of “greater than 6,000 our bodies” was agreed earlier this week throughout peace talks in Istanbul, Zorin mentioned, blaming Ukraine for failing to “verify receipt” of different our bodies of Ukrainian troopers which Russia claims it moved to an alternate space close to Novaya Guta, Belarus on Saturday.
Kyiv firmly rejected the accusations, with Kyrylo Budanov, the pinnacle of Ukrainian Protection Intelligence, saying that his nation was strictly adhering to the agreements reached at peace talks in Istanbul.
Budanov mentioned that the beginning of “repatriation measures” was scheduled to happen subsequent week, which he claims the Russian aspect was advised on Tuesday. “The whole lot goes in keeping with plan,” he mentioned.
A deliberate alternate of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of struggle didn’t happen on Saturday, with Moscow accusing Kyiv of suspending the swap on the final minute, one thing Ukrainian officers dismissed as “soiled info video games” from the Kremlin.
Regardless of three years of preventing such exchanges have been commonplace all through the battle and the swap was the one concrete end result of the talks in Istanbul this week.
Russia mentioned Ukraine unexpectedly postponed a switch involving prisoners of struggle and the our bodies of useless troopers on Saturday, leaving tons of of Ukrainian our bodies ready in refrigerated vehicles at an alternate level with nobody to gather them.
Ukraine rejected Russia’s account of the occasions, saying that the 2 sides had agreed to alternate significantly wounded and younger troops on Saturday however a date had not but been set for the repatriation of troopers’ our bodies.
Throughout a second spherical of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, Russia and Ukraine agreed to alternate extra prisoners this weekend. Vladimir Medinsky, the pinnacle of Russia’s delegation for peace talks with Ukraine, mentioned this week that the alternate can be the biggest for the reason that begin of the three-year struggle.
“In strict accordance with the Istanbul agreements, the Russian aspect started a humanitarian operation to switch greater than 6,000 our bodies of killed Ukrainian servicemen,” in addition to badly wounded troopers beneath the age of 25, Medinsky mentioned Saturday afternoon on Telegram.
He claimed that 1,212 our bodies of killed Ukrainian troopers have been on the alternate level, with the remaining “on their method.” He additionally mentioned that Russia gave Ukraine the primary listing of 640 prisoners of struggle for alternate, listed as “wounded, significantly ailing and younger individuals,” in an effort to begin the swap.
In a video posted by Russia’s Protection Ministry on Telegram, two males sporting hazmat fits are seen opening the doorways to the again of a truck parked on the aspect of a highway. Contained in the truck have been dozens of sealed white luggage, which the ministry mentioned contained the our bodies of Ukrainian troopers.
Medinsky mentioned Russia’s Protection Ministry contact group was ready on the border with Ukraine, however alleged that Kyiv had “unexpectedly postponed the switch of our bodies and the alternate of prisoners of struggle for an indefinite interval” and had given “fairly bizarre causes” for doing so.
Ukraine swiftly rejected the accusations, saying Medinsky’s claims “don’t correspond to actuality.” It mentioned the alternate of prisoners of struggle and troopers’ our bodies have been separate processes.
“Sadly, as an alternative of constructive dialogue, we’re once more confronted with manipulations and makes an attempt to make use of delicate humanitarian points for informational functions,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Therapy of Prisoners of Conflict wrote on Telegram.
“We name on the Russian aspect to cease enjoying soiled video games,” it added.
On Saturday, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-installed governor of the Russian-controlled elements of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia area, printed an inventory of 97 names of Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen whose our bodies have been imagined to a part of the switch.
“We are going to start to make public the lists of recognized our bodies in order that kinfolk can discover their useless,” Balitsky mentioned on Telegram.
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