Punjabi: Russia and Ukraine War Like Situation

[Dalvinder Singh Grewal]

Russia-Ukraine exchange prisoners June 12, 2025

June 12, 20259:10 PM GMT+5:30Updated 18 hours ago

Freed Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) return after a swap, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Maksym Kishka

Ukraine and Russia exchanged another group of ill and severely wounded servicemen on Thursday, officials from both countries said.
All of the Ukrainian troops need treatment, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a message on the Telegram messaging app that did not go into details on the numbers involved.
The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Kyiv and Moscow agreed to a large exchange of POWs and the remains of thousands of dead soldiers during talks in s in Istanbul earlier this month.

Since then, Russia and Ukraine have swapped dozens of prisoners of war, focusing on under-25s and the severely wounded and sick. There are hopes they could build into some of the biggest exchanges in the war that was triggered by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russia's defence ministry said a group of Russian troops had returned from Ukraine and crossed into neighbouring Belarus, in accordance with the agreements made on June 2.
"They are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance," the ministry said on Telegram.
On Wednesday, Ukraine said it had bought home the bodies of 1,212 bodies of troops killed in the war with Russia. Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said Ukraine had returned the bodies of 27 Russian soldiers.

 

[Dalvinder Singh Grewal]

A concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv on Wednesday killed six people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials said.
The attack followed Russia's two biggest air assaults of the war on Ukraine this week, part of intensified bombardment that Moscow says are retaliatory measures for Kyiv's recent attacks in Russia.
The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day.

A new wave of drone attacks on four city districts was reported early on Thursday by Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, including a drone that landed in a school courtyard and smashed windows. There were no other reports of casualties or damage.

 

[Dalvinder Singh Grewal]

Russia has hit Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, with a massive drone and bomber attack, killing four people and injuring nearly 60, officials say.

Two people were also killed in Russian strikes on Kherson, in southern Ukraine, local authorities said.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 48 drones, two missiles and four glide bombs had been used against his city on Friday night, while more glide bombs were reportedly dropped on Saturday.

Earlier, Moscow said a massive wave of drone and missile attacks across Ukraine on Thursday night was in response to "terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime", after attacks on Russian railway infrastructure and air bases last weekend.
n another development, Russian and Ukrainian officials released conflicting accounts about when a prisoner swap agreed at earlier talks would happen.
In Kharkiv, some 18 apartment buildings and 13 other homes were hit on Friday night, the mayor said. A baby and a 14-year-old girl were among the injured, he added.
One civilian industrial facility was attacked by 40 drones, one missile and four bombs, Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said, adding that there might still be people buried under the rubble.
In the later Russian attack using glide bombs on Kharkiv on Saturday evening, one more person was killed and at least another 18 people injured, the city's mayor said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha urged allies to increase pressure on Moscow and to take "more steps to strengthen Ukraine" in response to Russia's latest attacks.
Six people were killed and 80 injured across Ukraine on Thursday night, when Russia attacked the country with more than 400 drones and nearly 40 missiles.

EPA
A psychologist provides assistance to a woman near the site of an air strike in Kharkiv on Saturday

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes on Kharkiv made "no military sense" and were "pure terrorism".
He accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of "buying himself time to keep waging the war", and said "pressure must be applied" to stop the attacks.
During the latest round of direct talks in Istanbul earlier this week, the two warring sides agreed to exchange all sick and heavily wounded prisoners of war, those aged under 25, as well as the bodies of 12,000 soldiers.
Moscow's chief negotiator at the meeting, Vladimir Medinsky, said on Saturday that Ukraine had "unexpectedly postponed both the acceptance of bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war for an indefinite period".
He further said that the bodies of more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been taken to an agreed exchange point but that Ukrainian officials had never arrived.
A list of 640 prisoners-of-war had also been handed to Ukraine "in order to begin the exchange", Medinsky wrote on social media.
Ukrainian officials responded angrily to the allegations, telling Russia to "stop playing dirty games".