More than a hundred Ukrainian soldiers have been freed from captivity in Russia as part of a landmark deal, even as Moscow ramps up threats over Kyiv’s push to strike targets inside the country with Western-made missiles. “Our guys are home,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in a statement Saturday, confirming that 83 enlisted soldiers and 21 officers had been released. He thanked negotiators for securing “such good news for Ukraine.” Russia’s Defense Ministry simultaneously reported that 103 Russian servicemen had been handed over by Ukraine in return, and had been transferred by coach to neighboring Belarus. The exchange is…
Author: Gabriel Gavin
A long-awaited agreement that could bring peace to the South Caucasus after decades of conflict is close to being completed, Armenia and Azerbaijan have confirmed. In a press conference on Saturday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that his government has made a formal offer to Azerbaijan to sign a peace treaty, after judging that sufficient progress has been made on key issues in bilateral talks in recent months. “We have 17 articles in the latest draft of the peace treaty. Thirteen of them, including the preamble, are fully agreed on,” Pashinyan said. “We offer the following — to take…
The U.S. State Department said it is eyeing measures to clamp down on Iran’s oil exports amid rising worries about Tehran’s vow to take revenge against Israel for the killing of a top Hamas leader. Despite the tightening of sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s economy in recent years, the country’s exports of crude have steadily risen. According to data from analytics firm Kpler, its oil sales rose 30 percent in the last quarter alone, taking its fossil fuel shipments to a five-year high. In comments to POLITICO, a U.S. State Department spokesperson defended the existing restrictions on the trade as…