KYIV: Kyiv said Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers killed during battles with Russia, the second such patriation in the space of three weeks.
The exchange of prisoners and war dead is one of the few areas of cooperation between the two sides since Russia invaded Ukraine more than three years ago.
“As a result of repatriation activities, the bodies of 909 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a government agency, said in a statement on social media.
On 28 March, the two countries conducted a similar exchange, with Kyiv receiving the same number of bodies, 909, and Moscow 43, according to Russian state media.
Russia has not commented on the latest patriation.
In mid-February, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told US broadcaster NBC News that more than 46,000 of his soldiers had been killed and some 380,000 wounded.
Russia has not reported on its losses since autumn 2022, when it acknowledged fewer than 6,000 soldiers killed.
An ongoing investigation by Mediazona and BBC News Russian has identified the names of around 100,000 dead Russian soldiers since the beginning of the war, based on information from publicly available sources.
Kyiv receives 909 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers
https://arab.news/wxny4
Kyiv receives 909 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers
- The exchange of prisoners and war dead is one of the few areas of cooperation
- Russia has not commented on the latest patriation
Which countries currently have nuclear weapons?
- Russia, US, China, France, UK, India, Pakistan and North Korea possess nuclear weapons
- Israel has never acknowledged having nuclear weapons but is widely believed to have them
Nine countries currently either say they have nuclear weapons or are believed to possess them.
The first to have nuclear arms were the five original nuclear weapons states — the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom.
All five are signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which commits countries that don’t have nuclear arms not to build or obtain them, and those that do to “pursue negotiations in good faith” aimed at nuclear disarmament.
Rivals India and Pakistan, which haven’t signed the NPT, have built up their nuclear arsenals over the years. India was the first to conduct a nuclear test in 1974, followed by another in 1998. Pakistan followed with its own nuclear tests just a few weeks later.
Israel, which also hasn’t signed the NPT, has never acknowledged having nuclear weapons but is widely believed to.
North Korea joined the NPT in 1985 but announced its withdrawal from the treaty in 2003, citing what it called US aggression. Since 2006, it has conducted a string of nuclear tests.
Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and US intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing the bomb now. But it has in recent years been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.
In an annual assessment released this week, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that the nine countries had the following stockpiles of military nuclear warheads as of January:
Russia: 4,309
United States: 3,700
China: 600
France: 290
United Kingdom: 225
India: 180
Pakistan: 170
Israel: 90
North Korea: 50
Ukraine appoints new prosecutor general
- Kravchenko, 35, is now head of the state tax administration
- The prosecutor general’s post has remained vacant since October
KYIV: Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday appointed Ruslan Kravchenko, one of the key investigators of alleged Russian war crimes during the occupation of the Kyiv region in 2022, as prosecutor general.
Kravchenko, 35, is now head of the state tax administration, and before that chaired the Kyiv region military administration.
He was involved in the recording and prosecuting of alleged Russian atrocities in the town of Bucha, which was occupied for 33 days in the early stages of Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Russia denies accusations of numerous executions, rapes and torture during the occupation.
Kravсhenko was also a prosecutor in Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s treason case.
The prosecutor general’s post has remained vacant since October, after Andriy Kostin resigned following a scandal around officials receiving fake disability status and avoiding military service.
Pope Leo to escape Rome’s summer heat with July stay at Castel Gandolfo
- The pontiff will spend July 6 to 20 about an hour’s drive south in Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican said
- All of Leo’s public and private audiences have been suspended from July 2 through July 23
VATICAN CITY: As temperatures in Rome swelter this month, reaching more than 35 degrees Celsius (95°F) under the hot Mediterranean sun, Pope Leo has decided to leave town.
The pontiff will spend July 6 to 20 about an hour’s drive south in Castel Gandolfo, a small hamlet on Lake Albano, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
Leo, elected pope on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, will also return to the lakeshore for at least one weekend in August, it said.
All of Leo’s public and private audiences have been suspended from July 2 through July 23, the Vatican said, as was usual under Francis, to allow the pontiff a period of rest. They will restart on July 30.
By going to Castel Gandolfo, Leo is restarting a summer tradition that was broken by Francis.
Dozens of popes over centuries have spent the summer months at Lake Albano, where temperatures are usually about ten degrees cooler than Rome, but Francis preferred to stay in his air-conditioned Vatican residence.
The Vatican has owned a papal palace and surrounding grounds in Castel Gandolfo since 1596. Spanning 55 hectares, the property includes official apartments, elaborate Renaissance-style gardens, a forest and a working dairy farm.
Francis, who shunned most of the trappings of the papacy, had the official papal palace turned into a museum.
Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni told Reuters the pope would not stay at the palace, which will remain a museum, and will instead stay on another Vatican property.
Leo will return to Castel Gandolfo for the weekend of August 15 to 17.
August 15, a Catholic feast day to celebrate Mary, the Mother of God, is an Italian public holiday. Many Italians spend that day, and much of August, at the beach.
Black boxes from India plane crash under study to ascertain cause of the disaster that killed 270
- A former pilot and an aviation expert said the recovery of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or black boxes, are crucial to piece together the sequence of events
NEW DELHI: Investigators in India are studying the black boxes of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner after recovering them from the aircraft wreckage to ascertain the cause of last week’s plane crash that left at least 270 people dead.
The black boxes will provide cockpit conversations and data related to the plane’s engine and control settings to investigators and help them in determining the cause of the crash.
The London-bound Air India aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, crashed on a medical college hostel soon after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad. Only one passenger survived the crash, while 241 people on board and 29 on the ground were killed in one of India’s worst aviation disaster in decades.
Experts from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau are probing the crash with assistance from the UK, the US and officials from Boeing.
Black box data is crucial
Amit Singh, a former pilot and an aviation expert, said the recovery of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or black boxes, are crucial to piece together the sequence of events.
The cockpit voice recorder records pilots’ conversation, emergency alarms and any distress signal made before a crash. The plane’s digital flight data recorder stores information related to engine and control settings. Both devices are designed to survive a crash.
“The data will reveal everything,” Singh said, adding that the technical details could be corroborated by the cockpit voice recorder that would help investigators know of any communication between air traffic control and the pilots.
India’s aviation regulatory body has said the aircraft made a mayday call before the crash.
Singh said the investigating authorities will scan CCTV footage of the nearby area and speak with witnesses to get to the root cause of the crash.
Additionally, Singh said, the investigators will also study the pilot training records, total load of the aircraft, thrust issues related to the plane’s engine, as well as its worthiness in terms of past performances and any previously reported issues.
Investigation into the crash could take time
Aurobindo Handa, former director general of India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, said the investigators across the world follow a standard UN-prescribed Manual of Accident Investigation, also called “DOC 9756,” which outlines detailed procedures to arrive at the most probable cause of a crash.
Handa said the investigation into last week’s crash would likely be a long process as the aircraft was badly charred. He added that ascertaining the condition of the black boxes recovered from the crash site was vital as the heat generated from the crash could be possibly higher than the bearable threshold of the device.
The Indian government has set up a separate, high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash and formulate procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future. The committee is expected to file a preliminary report within three months.
Authorities have also begun inspecting and carrying out additional maintenance and checks of Air India’s entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners to prevent any future incident. Air India has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet.
The plane that crashed was 12 years old. Boeing planes have been plagued by safety issues on other types of aircraft. There are currently around 1,200 of the 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide and this was the first deadly crash in 16 years of operation, according to experts.
Russian media say top official is in Pyongyang again to meet North Korean leader
SEOUL: A top Russian security official traveled to Pyongyang for the second time this month for another meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russian state media reported Tuesday, the latest display of the countries’ deepening ties amid President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine.
Russia’s Tass news agency said Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu arrived in the North Korean capital on an unspecified “special” mission from Putin and was expected to meet with Kim. North Korean state media didn’t immediately confirm the visit.
Kim has supplied Russia with thousands of troops and large shipments of military equipment, including artillery and ballistic missiles, to support its military operation in Ukraine. Washington and Seoul have expressed concern that, in return, Kim may seek Russian technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by his nuclear-armed military.
In April, Pyongyang and Moscow officially confirmed North Korean troops’ deployment to Russia for the first time, saying that soldiers of the two countries were fighting alongside each other to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region. Putin then thanked North Korea’s participation in the war and promised not to forget their sacrifices.
In their previous meeting on June 4, Kim told Shoigu that his government would “unconditionally support” Russia over the war in Ukraine and other critical international issues as they discussed strengthening the strategic partnership between their countries, according to North Korean state media. Tass then reported that Shoigu and Kim also discussed prospects for rebuilding the Kursk region and outlined steps to commemorate the combat contributions of North Korean soldiers.
