RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian proposal can end Ukraine conflict – Putin

Russia’s offer for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict is a realistic way to end the hostilities, but the West is simply ignoring it, President Vladimir Putin has said.

In a keynote foreign policy speech earlier this month, the Russian leader promised to order a ceasefire if Ukraine vows not to seek membership in NATO and withdraws its troops from all territories claimed by Russia. Kiev immediately rejected the proposal.

In an address to an international forum hosted by Russia this week, Putin said his offer should be carefully considered by interested parties.

”Unlike many Western politicians who didn’t even bother to get to the core of the initiative we proposed, participants of this forum, I expect, will study it thoughtfully and rationally and will see that it gives a real opportunity to stop the conflict and move to its political-diplomatic resolution,” a written welcome message from Putin said, as read on Tuesday by his foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov.

Ushakov went on to say that Moscow is offering a “chance to at once stop the settlement of our differences on the battlefield and the loss of life,” adding, however, that the West wants to keep fighting Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

“For now, the West-spurred military frenzy” is not subsiding, he lamented, citing Ukraine’s missile attack last Sunday which injured over 150 civilians and claimed at least four lives at a beach in Sevastopol, Crimea.

Moscow claims that Washington shares responsibility for the strike, since Ukraine used US-supplied ATACMS missiles with cluster munition warheads. Some Russian officials have argued that American military specialists must have been directly involved in the use of the sophisticated weapon. Mikhail Podoliak, an aide to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, claimed that the beachgoers were “civilian occupiers.”

Ushakov stated that Russia has the overarching goal of creating an indivisible pan-Eurasian security system to replace the “Euroatlantic and Eurocentric models that are passing into oblivion.”

He added that it is time to seriously devise a way to ensure peace in the space “that covers Western and Eastern states and Russia in between them.” The participants of the forum – the Primakov Readings, named after the late Russian diplomat Evgeny Primakov – are among the experts who can accomplish this, Ushakov noted.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia, Ukraine each return 90 prisoners of war

Russia and Ukraine each handed back 90 prisoners of war on Tuesday in the latest of several periodic swaps in their 28-month-old conflict, with the United Arab Emirates overseeing the exchange as an intermediary.

The last exchange took place on May 31, when each side handed over 75 prisoners of war, also with the UAE acting as a go-between. That was the first exchange in nearly four months.

Russia said prisoners brought home on Tuesday had faced mortal danger in captivity.

Ukraine said returnees had included soldiers who had defended the Azovstal steel mill in a three-month siege in 2022 and others taken prisoner when Russian forces briefly seized the defunct Chornobyl nuclear power station.

The UAE said its action as a go-between had been made possible by maintaining good contacts with both sides.

The Russian Defence Ministry, in a posting on the Telegram messaging app, said: "As a result of negotiations, 90 Russian prisoners of war who risked death in captivity are being returned from areas under Kyiv's control."

It said the Russian prisoners were able to return home

"with the United Arab Emirates participating as an intermediary in a humanitarian capacity".

The freed Russian prisoners were being flown to Moscow, where they would undergo medical checks, the ministry said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said most of the freed servicemen were privates and sergeants, and the swap was another step in the process of bringing all detainees home.

"We will return all others in the same way," he said in his nightly video address. "We are seeking the truth about everyone -- where a person is, in what condition, what is needed for their return."

He thanked the UAE for facilitating the exchange and pledged to press on with efforts to bring home those still being held.

Ukraine's parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said those returning from captivity would undergo medical checks and receive help in resuming their lives.

Video posted on the president's Telegram channel showed men stepping off a bus to be greeted and handed blue and yellow national flags to drape over their shoulders.

The UAE Foreign Ministry, in a statement quoted by the state news agency WAM, said mediation had proved successful because it had leveraged "its distinct ties and partnership with both sides, including as a reliable mediator among both parties".

Since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine, the UAE has maintained neutral rhetoric on the conflict and continued mediating between the two sides to exchange prisoners.

RT/Reuters