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The United States President Joe Biden has indicated that he will be using the remaining four months of his term “to put Ukraine in the best possible position to prevail”, a close adviser revealed on Sunday.
Speaking remotely to a forum in Kyiv, the United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had also revealed that Biden will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in late September at the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss aid to Ukraine.
“President Zelensky has said that ultimately this war has to end through negotiations, and we need them to be strong in those negotiations,” Sullivan said, adding Ukraine would decide when to enter talks with Russia.
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Biden will be replaced next January either by his Vice President Kamala Harris, who has indicated she will continue his policies of backing Ukraine, or by former president Donald Trump, who would not say at a debate earlier this week whether he wanted Kyiv to win the war.
The announcement of the upcoming Biden-Zelensky meeting came after Moscow and Kyiv earlier Saturday swapped 103 prisoners of war each in a UAE-brokered deal, and as Russian forces continue to gain ground in their grinding offensive in east Ukraine.
The Russians released in the latest swap were captured during Ukraine’s recent cross-border incursion into the Kursk region, Moscow said, while some of the Ukrainians freed had been held prisoner since Moscow seized the Azovstal steel plant in May 2022.
“Another 103 soldiers were returned to Ukraine from Russian captivity,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
Russia confirmed it had “handed over” 103 Ukrainian army prisoners, and in return received 103 Russian servicemen captured by Kyiv.
“All Russian servicemen are on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance,” the Russian defence ministry said.
Despite ongoing hostilities, Russia and Ukraine have managed to swap hundreds of prisoners throughout the two-and-half-year conflict — often in deals brokered by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Turkey.
The announcement came a day after Zelensky said 49 Ukrainian POWs had been returned from Russia, and three weeks ago both sides swapped 115 prisoners each in a deal also mediated by the UAE.
The prisoner swap came as Russia pushed ahead in east Ukraine, where it claims to have captured a string of villages in recent weeks.
The Russian defence ministry said in a daily briefing it had “liberated” the village of Zhelanne Pershe, less than 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Pokrovsk lies on the intersection of a key road that supplies Ukrainian troops and towns across the eastern front and has long been a target for Moscow’s army.
More than half of the city’s 60,000 residents have fled since the invasion began in February 2022, with evacuations ramping up in recent weeks as Moscow’s army closes in.
Ukraine had hoped its major cross-border incursion into the Kursk region last month would slow down Russia’s advances in the east.
