President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed more "retribution" against Russia on Ukrainian Independence Day on Saturday, August 24, as Kyiv and Moscow announced the exchange of 230 prisoners just over two weeks into Ukraine's surprise offensive on Kursk. Zelensky also signed a law banning the Russian-linked branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and called the legislation a "liberation from Moscow's devils."
Kyiv marked its independence from the Soviet Union at a tense moment in the long war, as it mounts a push into Russia and Moscow eyes more east Ukrainian towns. Zelensky published a video of him standing in a hilly, forested area said to be near from where Ukraine launched its shock incursion on August 6. "What the enemy brought to our land has now returned to its home," he said, adding that Russia will "know what retribution is."
He called President Vladimir Putin a "sick man from Red Square who constantly threatens everyone with the red button," referring to nuclear war. Zelensky later said that one of the "goals" of Kyiv's Kursk operation was to show Russians "what is more important to him [Putin]: the occupation of the territories of Ukraine or the protection of his population." Kyiv has also said that the Kursk offensive aimed at stretching Russia's reserves from eastern Ukraine.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with army chief Valery Gerasimov, with the Kremlin saying they had discussed "countering enemy forces invading the Kursk region and measures being taken to destroy them." The Kremlin's choice of language was a break from previous statements that downplayed the Ukrainian surprise move. While it has visibly rattled Moscow, Ukraine's Kursk operation has not slowed Russia's advance in eastern Ukraine.
As Ukraine celebrated independence, Kyiv said a Russian strike on a residential of the easter city of Kostyantynivka, which lies near the frontline in the Donetsk region, killed five people.
Ukraine has also carried out some evacuations from the hub of Pokrovsk amid fears it will fall to advancing Russian forces. Both Kyiv and Moscow said they had returned 115 captive servicemen each in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates.
Zelensky published photographs of men wrapped in Ukrainian flags, and Kyiv's ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said dozens of those included Azovstal fighters from the 2022 battle for the steelworks in Mariupol. Ukraine has said one of the aims of its Kursk operation was to gain more Russian captives to get back its men from Russia.