This undated handout photograph released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on August 24, 2024, shows Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing on the occasion of Independence Day of Ukraine, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine. | Photo by Handout / UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / AFP
KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed more “retribution” against Russia on Ukrainian Independence Day Saturday, as Kyiv and Moscow announced the exchange of 230 prisoners just over two weeks into Ukraine’s surprise offensive on Kursk.
Zelensky also signed a law banning the Russian-linked branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and called the legislation a “liberation from Moscow’s devils”.
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Kyiv marked its independence from the Soviet Union at a tense moment in the long war as it mounts a push into Russia and Moscow eyes more east Ukrainian towns.
Zelensky published a video of him standing in a hilly, forested area filmed near from where Ukraine launched its shock incursion on August 6.
“Russia was seeking one thing: to destroy us… Instead, today we celebrate the 33rd Independence Day of Ukraine and what the enemy brought to our land has now returned to its home,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader said Russia will “know what retribution is” and called President Vladimir Putin a “sick man from Red Square who constantly threatens everyone with the red button,” referring to nuclear war.
Soon afterwards, Ukraine’s military intelligence said it had carried out a “successful” attack on an ammunition depot in Russia’s southern Voronezh region.
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Zelensky held official independence celebrations on Kyiv’s Sofia Square, with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte.
In Russia, President Putin held a meeting with army chief Valery Gerasimov with the Kremlin saying they had discussed “countering enemy forces invading the Kursk region and measures being taken to destroy them.”
The Kremlin’s choice of language was a break from previous statements that downplayed the Ukrainian surprise move.
While it has visibly rattled Moscow, Ukraine’s Kursk operation has not slowed Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine.
Kyiv said Saturday that a Russian bombardment in the eastern city of Kostyantynivka had killed five people and Ukraine has carried out evacuations from the hub of Pokrovsk amid fears it will fall.
POWs exchanged
Both Kyiv and Moscow said they had returned 115 captive servicemen each in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates.
“Another 115 of our defenders have returned home today. These are soldiers of the National Guard, the Armed Forces, the Navy, the State Border Guard Service,” Zelensky said.
He published photographs of men wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said dozens of those included Azovstal fighters from the 2022 epic battle for the steelworks in the city of Mariupol.
Kyiv had said one of the aims of its Kursk operation was to gain more Russian captives to get back its men from Russia. There were widespread reports in Russia of young conscripts going missing in Kursk.
Moscow said “115 Russian servicemen taken prisoner in the Kursk region have been returned from territories controlled by the Kyiv regime.”
It said the troops were currently in neighbouring Belarus and will be brought to Russia soon, releasing images of young-looking men near buses in a field.
‘Protecting Ukrainian Orthodoxy’
Speaking in front of St Michael’s Cathedral in Kyiv that is loyal to a patriarchy of the Orthodox Church that broke away from Moscow, Zelensky said a new law banning the Russian-linked church “protects Ukrainian Orthodoxy from Moscow’s dependence”.
Ukraine has been seeking to distance itself from the Russian church since 2014 and the efforts have accelerated since Russia’s 2022 invasion.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church officially broke away from the Moscow patriarchy in 2022, but Ukrainian officials repeatedly accuse its clerics of staying loyal to Russia.
Russia’s invasion has been backed by the country’s Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill, a staunch ally of President Vladimir Putin.
Russia has slammed the move as “illegal” and its church earlier this week said Ukraine’s law was comparable to “persecutions in the Roman Empire in the times of Nero and Diocletian.”
Voronezh attack
Russia said Saturday its air defences had destroyed seven Ukrainian drones over its southern Voronezh region and Belgorod and Bryansk border regions, with the Voronezh governor reporting the evacuation of a village.
Kyiv’s military intelligence said it had carried out an attack on a Russian ammunition depot near Ostrogozk in the Voronezh region, saying the facility stored “artillery and tank shells”.
Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev earlier said a state of emergency was declared in the Ostrogozk district after drone strikes, with 200 people evacuated from one village.
Gusev did not say exactly what was struck but said one woman was hospitalised in a “serious condition”.
Ukraine has hit Russian regions with drone attacks for months.