Ukraine and Russia announce major prisoner swap

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine and Russia announced their first exchange of prisoners of war in nearly four months on Friday, with 150 people freed after negotiations mediated by the United Arab Emirates. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 75 Ukrainian prisoners had been returned from Russia. They included four civilians while the rest were members of the...

Fire and Rescue Department pilots to undergo simulated emergency training in UAE

KUANTAN: The Fire and Rescue Department will be sending its pilots to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for simulated helicopter emergency training to enhance the skills of its personnel. Its director-general Datuk Nor Hisham Mohammad said JBPM has been allocated RM800,000 to send all 17 of its pilots to that country. He said the simulated training is...

World Court dismisses much of Ukraine’s case against Russia

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Judges at the top U.N. court on Wednesday found that Russia violated elements of a U.N. anti-terrorism treaty, but declined to rule on allegations brought by Kyiv that Moscow was responsible for the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. In the same ruling, judges at the...

Malaysians spotted as mercenaries in Ukraine’s Donetsk region

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians have been spotted as mercenaries operating in the occupied Donetsk region, says the Ukraine National Resistance Centre. The Centre - which is run by the Ukraine government's Special Operations Forces - said that these mercenaries were accompanied by a translator and a former member of the Wagner Group at a training ground in...

Woman accused of killing Russian war blogger says handler lied about bomb

(Reuters) - A Russian woman accused of assassinating a prominent pro-war blogger told a court on Tuesday she had thought the package she handed to him in a St Petersburg cafe contained a listening device, not a bomb. Darya Trepova said she was acting under orders from a man in Ukraine whom she knew as "Gestalt"...

Putin says Ukraine’s statehood at risk if pattern of war continues

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Ukraine's statehood could suffer an "irreparable blow" if the pattern of the war continued, and Russia would never be forced to abandon the gains it had made. Putin made his televised comments a day after Switzerland agreed to host a global summit at the request...

Russia’s Medvedev says any UK troop deployment to Ukraine would be a declaration of war

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior ally of President Vladimir Putin warned on Friday that Moscow would regard any move by Britain to deploy a military contingent to Ukraine as a declaration of war against Russia. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, made the comments in response to a visit by...

Faster, faster: Chinese scholar says quicker ECRL trains, speedier construction time possible

KUALA LUMPUR: A prominent Chinese scholar hopes the ECRL (East Coast Rail Link) project will be completed as two high-speed rail projects in South-East Asia have already been built. "The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail and Laos-China high-speed rail have been completed. Hopefully, the ERCL project will be completed quickly, too," said Victor Gao, the chair professor at...

Russia renews missile attacks on Kyiv, pounds Ukraine’s east and south

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine's capital Kyiv and the nearby region for the first time in weeks on Saturday and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital...

Putin’s spy master says issue of Ukraine support turning ‘toxic’ in US

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign intelligence chief said on Wednesday that the issue of support for Ukraine was becoming toxic in the United States and that the divisions would deepen ahead of next year's U.S. presidential election. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, the United States and the European Union have...