INTERNACIONAL
On Ukrainian Independence Day, over 100 POWs swapped with Russia
Ukraine exchanged over 100 individuals with Russia this week as the country celebrated its third Independence Day since the invasion began.
The two nations swapped an even number of prisoners — 115 soldiers for 115 soldiers — on Saturday, the 55th such exchange of the ongoing conflict.
«Another 115 of our defenders have returned home today. These are warriors of the National Guard, the Armed Forces, the Navy, and the State Border Guard Service,» Zelenskyy said in a statement on the exchange. «We remember everyone. We are searching for them and making every effort to bring them all back.»
RUSSIA LOOKS TO DOWNPLAY UKRAINE INVASION AS ‘NEW NORMAL’ WHILE PUTIN FAILS TO STOP WAR ON HOME TURF: REPORT
The agreement was struck via negotiations facilitated by the United Arab Emirates.
Zelenskyy praised those soldiers responsible for capturing Russian combatants, stating that such successes on the battlefield give the much smaller nation leverage in negotiations for their own men’s return.
«I am grateful to each unit that replenishes our exchange fund. This helps to advance the release of our military personnel and civilians from Russian captivity,» Zelenskyy said. «I thank our team and partners, the UAE, for bringing our people back home.»
UKRAINE TARGETS RUSSIAN BRIDGES IN MOVE AGAINST MOSCOW COUNTEROFFENSIVE IN KURSK
Officials in the Kremlin are scrambling to downplay Ukraine’s invasion into the Kursk region as Russian President Vladimir Putin has failed for a second week to stop Kyiv’s advances on his home turf, according to a report by independent Russian news outlet Meduza.
The report, which first emerged last week, claimed that sources in the Kremlin have begun pushing government-funded media agencies to minimize the severity of the Ukrainian incursion and to start employing a propaganda campaign that encourages Russians to embrace the «new normal.»
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Fox News Digital could not independently verify the report, which comes as Ukraine continues to tout its success in capturing more than 780 square miles of Kursk, including the town of Sudhza, as well as nearly 100 Russian villages, according to Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Tuesday.
Fox News Digital’s Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.
INTERNACIONAL
Militants launch deadly attack on training camp in Mali’s capital
Islamic militants attacked a military training camp and other locations in Mali’s capital Tuesday, sparking deadly gunbattles and the temporary closure of a nearby airport before troops were able to subdue the assailants, officials said. No details of casualties were immediately released.
The militants tried to infiltrate the Faladie gendarme school in Bamako in a rare attack for the capital, prompting a sweep by government troops who later were able to «neutralize» the attackers, army Chief of Staff Oumar Diarra said on national TV, without elaborating.
MILITARY-LED MALI SUSPENDS ALL POLITICAL ACTIVITY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
The attack caused «loss of life and material damage,» a security official told The Associated Press, but didn’t provide numbers or details. At least 15 suspects were arrested, said the official, who was inside the training camp at the time of the attack. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to reporters.
Later, the military said that the militants also had attacked other locations, but did not provide details.
The al-Qaida-linked militant group JNIM claimed responsibility for the attacks on its website Azallaq. Videos posted by JNIM on the site show fighters setting a plane at the airport on fire. The group claimed to have inflicted «major human and material losses.»
An AP reporter heard two explosions in the area earlier Tuesday and saw smoke rise from a location on the outskirts of the city where the camp and airport are located.
Soon after the attacks, Mali’s authorities closed the airport, with Transport Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ould Mamouni saying flights were suspended because of the exchange of gunfire nearby. The airport reopened later in the day.
The U.S. Embassy in Bamako told its staff to remain at home and stay off the roads.
Mali, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, has for more than a decade battled an insurgency fought by armed groups, including some allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russian mercenary units for security assistance instead.
Since taking power, Col. Assimi Goita has struggled to stave off growing attacks by the jihadis. Attacks in central and northern Mali are increasing. In July, approximately 50 Russian mercenaries in a convoy were killed in an al-Qaida ambush.
The mercenaries had been fighting mostly Tuareg rebels alongside Mali’s army when their convoy was forced to retreat into jihadi territory and ambushed south of the commune of Tinzaouaten.
Attacks in the capital of Bamako are rare, however.
«I think JNIM wanted to show they can also stage attacks in the south and in the capital, following the battle on the north near the Algeria border where Wagner suffered losses,» said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which promotes democracy.
In 2022, gunmen struck a Malian army checkpoint about 60 kilometers (40 miles) outside the city, killing at least six people and wounding several others. In 2015, another al-Qaida linked extremist group killed at least 20 people, including one American, during an attack on a hotel in Bamako.
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Tuesday’s attack is significant because it showed that JNIM has the ability to stage a large-scale attack, Wassim Nasr, a journalist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, told the AP.
It also shows that they are concentrating their efforts on military targets, rather than random attacks on civilian targets, he said.
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