Russian victory in Ukraine would bring 'chaos' - France

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has warned that if Russia defeats Ukraine on the battlefield it would sow "chaos" in the international system.

He was speaking on a visit to Kyiv which underlines French support for Ukraine and comes at the end of a week in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled his "victory plan" to defeat Russia and called for beefed-up Western backing.

Speaking alongside Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga, Mr Barrot said: "A Russian victory would consecrate the law of the strongest and precipitate the international order towards chaos."

Referring to a different proposal outlined by Zelensky which details Kyiv's principles for a just and lasting peace, Mr Barrot added: "Our exchanges ... must enable us to advance President Zelensky's peace plan."

Mr Sybiga thanked France for its support for Ukraine, including the training of Ukrainian troops, and said the two countries had formed a "special partnership."

He also warned the involvement of North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia carried a "huge threat of further escalation" and risked the war "going beyond the current borders and boundaries".

South Korea's spy agency said yesterday that North Korea had decided to send "large-scale" troops to support Moscow's war in Ukraine, reporting that 1,500 special forces were already in Russia's Far East and undergoing training.

Yesterday US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Germany, France and Britain voiced their "resolve to continue supporting Ukraine in its efforts to secure a just and lasting peace".

Mr Zelensky was in Paris earlier this month as part of a whirlwind diplomatic tour of Kyiv's key allies.

He has yet to gain backing on the specific proposals of his "victory plan", whose central plea - for an immediate invitation to join NATO - is widely viewed as unrealistic.

Mr Zelensky's blueprint also rejects territorial concessions, calls for allies to lift restrictions on using donated long-range weapons against Russian military sites, and suggests deploying a "non-nuclear strategic deterrence package" on Ukrainian territory.

Russia and Ukraine exchange 95 POWs each in swap deal

Russia and Ukraine carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war, each side bringing home 95 prisoners in an agreement in which the United Arab Emirates acted as mediator.

Russia's Defence Ministry, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, said the returning Russian service members were undergoing medical checks in Belarus, one of Russia's closest allies in the war.

A video posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's Telegram account showed men, some wrapped in the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag, getting off a bus well after dark and being embraced by loved ones.

A Russian military video showed smiling soldiers boarding buses.

"Every time Ukraine rescues its people from Russian captivity, we get closer to the day when freedom will be returned to all who are in Russian captivity," Mr Zelensky wrote.

The president said the freed prisoners had served on various fronts, including some who had defended the port city of Mariupol for nearly three months in 2022.

Ukrainian news reports said the returnees included Ukrainian journalist and rights advocate Maksym Butkevych, convicted by a Russian court of shooting at Russian forces.

The body co-ordinating the affairs of prisoners of war said 48 of the returnees had been handed sentences by the Russian judicial system.

Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament's commissioner for human rights, said the release was the 58th since the beginning of the war and brought to 3,767 the total number of prisoners returned home.

A private Russian group that says it looks after the interests of prisoners of war published a list of returnees and said most of them were captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces staged an incursion in August.

In his remarks, Mr Zelensky again referred to soldiers in that operation who "replenish the exchange fund", meaning the capture of Russian prisoners to be used as a bargaining chip in exchanges.

Ukrainian forces remain in Kursk, though Russia's military says its forces have clawed back some of the captured territory.

A statement from the UAE's Foreign Ministry, reported by state media, said it was the Gulf state's ninth instance of mediation in the war. It described the exchange as "a reflection of the cooperative and friendly relations between the UAE and both countries".

The last known prisoner swap, involving 103 prisoners from each side, took place in September.