Ukraine updates: Dozens freed in prisoner swap with Russia

While visiting Kyiv on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot promised France will equip Ukraine with Mirage 2000 warplanes. The first batch is expected to arrive in early 2025.

Ukrainian pilots and mechanics will be trained to operate the planes.

Kyiv's Western allies have sought to bolster Ukrainian air force with additional jets, most notably F-16s supplied by European NATO members. After many months of preparations and pilot training, Ukraine took possession of the planes in late July. The exact number of planes currently operated by Ukrainian pilots has not been made public. NATO has pledged to supply up to F-16 100 airframes.

Romania deployed fighter jets for the second time this week after a flying object entered its airspace.

Radar systems recorded the object flying in from the Black Sea overnight on Saturday. It penetrated some 19 kilometers (12 miles) into NATO airspace before disappearing from the radar near the village of Cogealac.

The Defense Ministry in Bucharest said two Spanish F-18 jets and two Romanian F-16s were deployed but were unable to establish visual contact.

The ministry did not immediately announce what the aircraft was or provide info on its point of origin.

Romania, a NATO and EU member, shares a 650-kilometer border with Ukraine. A similar incident on Thursday already also prompted Romania to respond by raising warplanes, with NATO accusing Russia of breaching its airspace.

Poland, another NATO country bordering Ukraine, reported a missile strike in November 2022 which killed two people. Polish officials eventually said the missile was Ukrainian.

Visiting Kyiv on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot endorsed Kyiv's "victory plan"and said Paris will work with Ukraine to get other partners on board.

The initiative says Ukraine says its should be invited to join NATO immediately, and its Western allies should be involved in creating "a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package" to avert another Russian aggression, as well as developing Ukraine economically.

In Kyiv, Barrot said that a Russian victory would reinforce the might-makes-right principle and "push the international order toward chaos."

"That is why our exchanges should allow us to make progress on President Zelenskyy's victory plan and rally the greatest number possible of countries around it," added the French foreign minister said at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian colleague Andrii Sybiha.

"By resisting against the invader with exceptional courage, you are not only fighting for Ukraine's territorial integrity, but you are also holding a front line that separates Europe from Vladimir Putin's Russia, that separates freedom from oppression," Barrot said.

After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was open to peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow praised it as an "important" message.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that "until quite recently, Germany was among other Western countries that fully excluded any contact with Putin."

"We have said that this position has no future perspective," Peskov added.

The Kremlin spokesman said that "the dialogue will never be simple" but "every war ends at the negotiating table, it ends with peace."

Talking to German lawmakers on Wednesday, Germany's Scholz said Berlin will continue to provide "clear support" for Kyiv but also "explore how we can get to a situation where this war doesn't carry on indefinitely." Scholz also said that Kyiv was in favor of a new peace conference involving Putin.

"That is why it is also right that, if we are asked, we will also speak with the Russian president," Scholz said.

Ukraine joining NATO at this point would "cross out the possibility" of solving the conflict via political and diplomatic means, according to a senior official of the Russian Foreign Ministry. His remarks come after Ukraine published segments of its "victory plan," which also foresees an invitation to NATO.

"We are constituently warning about the dangers about Ukraine joining NATO," diplomat Alexei Polishuk was cited as saying by RIA Novosti.

He said that such a move would "make it unavoidable for [NATO] to be dragged into direct combat against Russia and lead towards uncontrollable escalation," and this development would be "completely and utterly" the responsibility of the "Western handlers of the Kyiv regime."

Polishuk also said he hoped there will be sensible politicians inside NATO's leadership who can see the consequences of having Ukraine join the alliance.

Britain's foreign secretary raised concerns about China's support of Russia in its war against Ukraine, urging his Chinese counterpart to prevent Chinese firms from supplying to Russia's military in a meeting in Beijing on Friday.

David Lammy made the comments as he made his first visit by a Cabinet minister to China since the Labor government took control in July.

He met Friday with Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang and held talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi later the same day.

The two-day trip is an attempt to reset ties with Beijing after relations turned frosty in recent years over spying allegations, China's support for Russia in the Ukraine war and a crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong, a former British colony. 

Russia's Defense Ministry said it freed 95 Ukrainian prisoners in exchange for an equal number of its forces on Friday. Ukraine has not yet specified the number of captives freed.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a video of men, some of them wrapped in the Ukrainian flag, getting off a bus and reuniting with their families, confirming the news.

"Every time Ukraine rescues its people from Russian captivity, we get closer to the day when freedom will be returned to all who are in Russian captivity," Zelenskyy said.

The president said the freed prisoners had served on various fronts, including some who had defended theport city of Mariupol for nearly three months in 2022.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its personnel were undergoing medical checks in Belarus.

Both countries have exchanged hundreds of prisoners since Russia's war in Ukraine began in 2022.

The last known prisoner swap in September involved 103 prisoners from each side.

South Korea's intelligence agency said on Friday that North Korea had sent around 1,500 special forces troops to Russia to help with the war effort in Ukraine.

It said the troops were an initial contingent from a total of around 11,000 troops who were set to serve alongside Russian forces.

Russia has previously denied using North Korean troops in the war.

The Russian army said on Friday that it had recaptured some Ukrainian-occupied villages in the Kursk region.

Ukrainian forces began an incursion into Russia's Kursk region in August to disrupt Russian military logistics and hold onto a bargaining chip for potential negotiations in future.

Russia's state-run TASS news agency said Ukrainian soldiers had fled their positions near the village of Lyubimovka.

Russian media outlet Mash reported heavy Ukrainian losses and said the Russian army had killed some 50 people and taken dozens of prisoners.

The claims could not be independently verified and there was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.

Russia returned the bodies of 501 dead soldiers to Ukraine on Friday, the Ukrainian government said.

The move appears to be the largest repatriation of war dead since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Most of the soldiers were killed in action in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Forensic experts will now identify the victims, who will then be returned to their families for burial.

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday after he commented about the hypothetical need for a nuclear deterrent.

 At a meeting of NATO defense ministers a day earlier, Zelenskyy had said that "either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which will serve as protection, or it must be part of some kind of alliance."

"This is a dangerous provocation," Putin said on Friday at a meeting with journalists from the BRICS group of emerging economies. "Any step in this direction will be met with a corresponding reaction."

"It is not difficult to create nuclear weapons in the modern world," Putin added.

"I do not know whether Ukraine is capable of doing it now, it is not so easy for Ukraine of today, but in general there is no great difficulty here."

However, Zelenskyy's chief of staff insisted that the Ukrainian president's comments had been misinterpreted.

"We have not these thoughts about nuclear, we refuse it," Andriy Yermak told a think-tank event in Brussels.

Ukraine inherited the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Two years later, it agreed to hand these weapons over to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from both Moscow and Washington that its territorial integrity would be respected.

Russia began nuclear weapons exercises near the border with Ukraine earlier this year.

zc/wd,rm (Reuters, AP; AFP, dpa)