Kyiv brings home 189 POWs in prisoner swap with Russia; US dishes out $5.9bn in military and budget aid

30 Dec 2024

Ukraine’s returning POWs said to include civilians captured by Russia in Mariupol in 2022, while US President Joe Biden announces a $2.5-billion military aid package – supplemented by $3.4-billion in direct budgetary aid – that will ‘strengthen Ukraine’s hand as it heads into the winter’.

Ukraine and Russia carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war on Monday, 30 December 2024, with Kyiv bringing home 189 former captives, said President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky thanked the United Arab Emirates and other partners for facilitating the swap.

“The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us. And today is one of such days: our team managed to bring 189 Ukrainians home,” Zelensky said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Russian Defence Ministry announced the prisoner swap earlier on Monday, saying each side had freed 150 prisoners of war. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy in the numbers. The ministry said the Russian captives had been released on Belarusian territory and would be transferred to Russia.

Zelensky said the returning Ukrainians included soldiers, sergeants and officers from different frontline areas and also two civilians who had been captured in the southern port of Mariupol taken by the Russian troops in 2022.

Pictures released by Zelensky showed dozens of men sitting in a bus, some of them wrapped in Ukraine’s national blue and yellow flag.

US announces $5.9bn in military and budget aid to Ukraine

The United States on Monday announced nearly $6-billion in additional military and budget assistance for Ukraine as President Joe Biden uses his final weeks in office to increase aid to Kyiv before president-elect Donald Trump takes power.

Biden announced $2.5-billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US has made available $3.4-billion in additional direct budget aid to Ukraine, giving the war-torn country critical resources amid intensifying Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure.

“At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office,” Biden said in a statement.

Biden’s announcement includes $1.25-billion in military aid drawn from US stockpiles and a $1.22-billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) package, the final USAI package of Biden’s time in office.

Under USAI, military equipment is procured from the defence industry or partners, rather than drawn from American stocks, meaning it can take months or years to arrive on the battlefield.

Yellen said the direct budget assistance, provided in coordination with the US Agency for International Development and the State Department, marked the final disbursement under the 2024 Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act.

Biden said the new military aid will provide Ukraine with “an immediate influx of capabilities that it continues to use to great effect on the battlefield and longer-term supplies of air defence, artillery and other critical weapons systems”.

The Russians have recently been using North Korean troops to bolster their fighting position.

North Korean forces are experiencing mass casualties on the front lines, with 1,000 of their troops killed or wounded in the last week alone in Russia’s Kursk region, White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday, 27 December.

The US Congress has approved $175-billion in total assistance for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. However, it is uncertain if the aid will continue at those levels under Trump, who succeeds Biden on 20 January.

Trump has said he wants to bring the war to a swift end.

During the presidential campaign, Trump questioned the level of US involvement in the conflict, suggesting European allies should bear more of the financial burden.

Some of his fellow Republicans, who will control both the House of Representatives and Senate starting next month, have also cooled on sending more aid to Kyiv.

A US official said the $3.4-billion in budget funding brings the total in US budget aid to Ukraine to just more than $30-billion since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Most of those funds are used to keep Ukraine’s government running by paying salaries to teachers and other state employees.

Washington has separately provided approximately $61.4-billion in security assistance to Kyiv since the start of the war, according to the Pentagon.

Biden said the Defence Department is in the process of delivering hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles, “which will strengthen Ukraine’s hand as it heads into the winter”.

Yellen said continued economic aid for Ukraine was crucial to allow it to maintain government services and continue to defend its sovereignty, warning against moves to cut funding.

“Ukraine’s success is in America’s core national interest,” she said, vowing to continue to pressure Moscow with sanctions and to help position Ukraine to achieve a just peace.

“We must not retreat in this effort.”

Starlink to roll out direct-to-cell services in Ukraine

Ukraine’s leading cellphone operator Kyivstar has signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s Starlink to introduce direct-to-cell satellite connectivity, Kyivstar’s parent company, VEON, said on Monday.

Direct-to-cell devices are connected to satellites equipped with modems that function like a cellphone tower, beaming phone signals from space directly to smartphones.

Kyivstar expects direct-to-cell services with messaging functionality to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2025, the telecoms group said. The operator will expand voice and data services in later stages.

Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

SpaceX-owned Starlink, which also provides critical internet connectivity to Ukraine and its military, launched its first set of satellites with direct-to-cell capabilities earlier this year.

The satellite broadband firm has struck deals with local providers for direct-to-cell services in the US and seven other countries, including Japan and New Zealand.

Ukraine will be one of the first countries in the world with direct-to-cell connectivity and the first conflict zone where Starlink will roll out this technology, according to its website.

Russia has ramped up its efforts to jam signals between Starlink satellites and ground terminals in Ukraine since 2022.

The agreement comes as Musk grows more engaged with the incoming Trump administration in the US and its Ukraine strategy.

In November, he joined a call between President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he said he would continue supplying Starlink satellites to Ukraine, Axios reported.

Russian gas flows via Ukraine for last days as transit deal ends

Russia pumped gas on Monday to European customers via Ukraine for one of the last days before a key transit deal expires at the end of the year, marking the almost complete loss of Russia’s once-mighty hold over the European gas market.

Supplies of Russian gas via Ukraine are due to stop from the early hours of 1 January after the current five-year deal expires. Kyiv has refused to negotiate a new transit deal as its war against Russia approaches the end of a third year.

Russia and the Soviet Union spent half a century building up a major share of the European gas market, which at its peak stood at 35%, but the war in Ukraine has all but destroyed that business for Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled gas giant.

Moscow has lost its share to rivals such as Norway, the United States and Qatar since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which prompted the EU to cut its dependence on Russian gas.

The slump in Russian gas supplies to Europe pushed gas prices to an all-time high, stoking inflation and raising the cost of living across the continent.

The end of the transit deal is unlikely to cause a repeat of the 2022 EU gas price rally as the remaining volumes are relatively small. Russia shipped about 15 billion cubic metres of gas via Ukraine in 2023 – only 8% of peak Russian gas flows to Europe via various routes in 2018–2019.

President Vladimir Putin said last week that there was no time left this year to sign a new Ukrainian gas transit deal, laying the blame on Kyiv for refusing to extend the agreement.

The Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline brings gas from Siberia via the town of Sudzha – now under the control of Ukrainian soldiers – in Russia’s Kursk region. It then flows through Ukraine to Slovakia. In Slovakia, the gas pipeline splits into branches going to the Czech Republic and Austria.

Most other Russian gas routes to Europe are shut, including Yamal-Europe via Belarus and Nord Stream under the Baltic, which was blown up in 2022.

The only other operational Russian gas pipeline routes to Europe are the Blue Stream and TurkStream to Turkey under the Black Sea. Turkey sends some Russian gas volumes onward to Europe including to Hungary.

Gazprom plunged to a net loss of $7-billion in 2023, its first annual loss since 1999, because of the loss of the EU’s gas markets.

Disruptions to gas supplies have also sparked numerous contractual and political disputes.

On Monday, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean ordered his government to start preparing for the possible nationalisation of gas company Moldovagaz, 50% of which is owned by Gazprom.

Gazprom had said it plans to suspend gas exports to Moldova from 1 January due to unpaid debts. Moldova disputes it is in arrears for previous gas shipments and accuses Russia of destabilising the country, which Moscow denies.

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Friday that Slovakia would consider reciprocal measures against Ukraine such as halting back-up electricity supplies if Kyiv stops the gas transit from 1 January.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Fico on Saturday of opening a “second energy front” against Ukraine on the orders of Russia. Slovakia denied the accusation.

The Czech Republic, meanwhile, said on Monday that it is ready to provide Slovakia with gas transit and storage capacities to help it secure stable supplies. Industry Minister Lukas Vlcek said alternative supplies to the region would become more affordable after Germany agreed to exempt countries transiting gas from a domestic gas levy from 1 January.

Reuters reported earlier this month that Ukraine could consider continued transit of Russian gas on the condition that Moscow does not receive money for the fuel until after the war, Zelensky said earlier this month.

Putin places shares in InBev’s Russian entity in temporary management

Russian President Vladimir Putin has transferred shares in brewer AB InBev’s Russian joint venture into temporary management, according to a decree published on a Russian government website on Monday.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer by volume, said in April 2022 it would sell its interest in the venture to its JV partner, Turkish brewer Anadolu Efes, in order to exit Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. However, the deal was rejected by Russian authorities earlier this year.

Putin has been able to place companies in temporary management under a decree published in April 2023. It grants the manager full control of the assets, except for the ability to dispose of them.

The decree said 15,831,786,776 ordinary shares and 92,943 privileged shares in the AB Inbev/Anadolu Efes venture were placed under the management of the Vmeste group of companies, an entity incorporated in Moscow last August.

AB InBev is among several Western companies whose efforts to exit Russia have been scuppered by Russian authorities.

Syria eyes ‘strategic’ ties with Ukraine, Kyiv vows more food shipments

Syria hopes for “strategic partnerships” with Ukraine, its new foreign minister told his Ukrainian counterpart on Monday, as Kyiv moves to build ties with the new Islamist rulers in Damascus amid waning Russian influence.

Russia was a staunch ally of ousted President Bashar al-Assad and has given him political asylum. Moscow has said it is in contact with the new administration in Damascus, including over the fate of Russian military facilities in Syria.

“There will be strategic partnerships between us and Ukraine on the political, economic and social levels, and scientific partnerships,” Syria’s newly appointed foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, told Ukraine’s Andrii Sybiha.

“Certainly the Syrian people and the Ukrainian people have the same experience and the same suffering that we endured over 14 years,” he said, apparently drawing a parallel between Syria’s brutal 2011–2024 civil war and Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory culminating in its full-scale 2022 invasion.

Sybiha, who also met Syria’s new de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, said Ukraine would send more food aid shipments to Syria after the expected arrival of 20 shipments of flour on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced last Friday the dispatch of Ukraine’s first batch of food aid to Syria comprising 500 tonnes of wheat flour as part of Kyiv’s humanitarian Grain from Ukraine initiative in cooperation with the United Nations World Food Programme.

Ukraine, a global producer and exporter of grain and oilseeds, traditionally exports wheat and corn to countries in the Middle East, but not to Syria, which in the Assad era imported food from Russia.

Russian wheat supplies to Syria have been suspended because of uncertainty about the new government in Damascus and payment delays, Russian and Syrian sources told Reuters in early December. Russia had supplied wheat to Syria using complex financial and logistical arrangements to circumvent Western sanctions imposed on both Moscow and Damascus.

The ousting of Assad by al-Sharaa’s Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has thrown the future of Russia’s military bases in Syria – the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia and the Tartous naval facility – into question.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the status of Russia’s military bases would be the subject of negotiations with the new leadership in Damascus.

Al-Sharaa said this month that Syria’s relations with Russia should serve common interests. In an interview published on Sunday, 29 December, he said Syria shared strategic interests with Russia, striking a conciliatory tone, though he did not elaborate. DM

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World

US announces $5.9bn in military and budget aid to Ukraine

Starlink to roll out direct-to-cell services in Ukraine

Russian gas flows via Ukraine for last days as transit deal ends

Putin places shares in InBev’s Russian entity in temporary management

Syria eyes ‘strategic’ ties with Ukraine, Kyiv vows more food shipments