Air raid sirens sounded across all Ukraine’s regions on Wednesday, officials says. Ukrainian social media reports says the nationwide alert may have been declared after Russian jets stationed in Belarus took off.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Wednesday said that peace proposals to end the conflict in Ukraine must take into account what it called “the new reality” of four Ukrainian regions having joined Russia.
Russia declared Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia part of its territory in September after referendums condemned by Ukraine and Western countries. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions
Ukraine has secured the release of at least 1,456 prisoners of war since Russia invaded on February 24, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told parliament in an annual address held behind closed doors.
Kiev and Moscow have held a series of prisoner swaps throughout the war which started in February. Zelenskyy has said the release of prisoners of war is a priority.
Russia is thought to hold thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war, but the exact figures are not known.
Russia wants to ‘settle situation’ in Ukraine as soon as possible: Lavrov Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow would like to settle the situation in Ukraine as soon as possible.
Protecting the lives of soldiers and civilians is a priority for Moscow, Lavrov said in an interview on a Russian news programme.
“We would like to settle this situation as soon as possible, to end this war that the West was preparing and eventually unleashed against us through Ukraine,” he said. Chechens in Bosnia seek to dodge Russian draft, reach EU
A group of ethnic Chechens fleeing Russia have arrived in Bosnia, hoping to use the Balkan country as a launchpad to reach the European Union and avoid getting sent to fight in Ukraine.
The group of some 50 people, predominantly from Russia’s Chechnya region, congregated near Bosnia’s northwestern border with EU-member Croatia, the Bosnian Security Ministry said.
Russians can enter Bosnia without a visa and are permitted to stay in the country for a maximum of 90 days within a 180-day period. But to enter Croatia, which is set to join Europe’s visa-free travel zone, the Schengen Area, on January 1, they must hold a valid visa.
Source: eNCA
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