COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) – This week, wounded veterans are taking part in a ride created to help them recover from their injuries while reminding them they are never alone.

More than 35 wounded veterans cycled through Colorado Springs as part of Wounded Warrior Project’s Soldier Ride, a four-day ride designed to empower wounded veterans on their recovery journeys.

“We do believe that healing starts with movement,” said Kervin Quinones, Soldier Ride Manager. “So just getting the veterans to come out and exercise, do something hard again because they’ve done that in the past, and just kind of remind them, we do want to get them in with their peers as well. Like just again, understanding that they’re not alone.”

The ride has become so popular that veterans from states across the west coast came to Colorado Springs to participate – including one veteran from Hawaii.

“Coming from Hawaii I thought, oh man, the elevations there! And I did train for this, and I thought it was gonna be a lot worse,” said Navy Veteran Larry Polendey. “It’s like a challenge through strength. It gets you out of your comfort zone, so you get to experience other opportunities that you might not do by yourself.”

Army veteran Eric Dahl tells KRDO13 he’s glad he was able to take part in this ride, and it’s something he will always remember.

Organizers said due to so many veterans wanting to take part in this ride, they’re planning on doing it in Colorado Springs every year from now on.

“We do have such a large backlog,” Quinones said. “We are going to try to do it here every year around the same time.”

Army veteran Tara Octaviano flew from Arizona for the ride. She was surprised when she found out she’d been selected to join the Soldier Ride, and was excited for a bonding opportunity with her fellow veterans.

“We’ve all been through some hard times. We’ve been to combat. We’ve been to all over the world. We’ve sacrificed a lot, and so it’s time for us to now enjoy life and be around our friends,” said Octaviano.

During tomorrow’s long ride, the group will be cycling from the Air Force Academy to Downtown Colorado Springs.

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AP —

Authorities in the second-largest city in Kyrgyzstan, Osh, have removed a towering statue of Vladimir Lenin thought to be the tallest of the revolutionary Soviet leader in Central Asia.

The 23-meter (75-foot) monument was erected in 1975 when Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union. Photos appeared online Saturday showing the statue flat on the ground after being lowered by a crane.

While many countries formerly part of the Soviet Union have moved to downplay their ties to Russia as part of efforts to reshape national identity, the monument was taken down with little public fanfare and officials in Osh framed the removal as routine city planning.

In a statement, Osh City Hall called the move “common practice” aimed at improving the “architectural and aesthetic appearance” of the area.

Officials also noted that Lenin monuments have been “dismantled or moved to other places” in Russian cities including St Petersburg and Belgorod, and said that the issue “should not be politicized.”

The monument, they said, will be replaced by a flagpole, as was the case when a different Lenin statue was relocated in the capital, Bishkek.

The move came a week after Kyrgyzstan’s ally Russia unveiled a monument to brutal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin at one of Moscow’s busiest subway stations.

CNN —

Russia and Ukraine have completed the first phase of what is expected to be the biggest prisoner exchange since the start of the war, with almost 800 people released on Friday.

The swap started on Friday and will continue on Saturday and Sunday, with Kyiv and Moscow expected to swap 2,000 people – 1,000 from each side.

The agreement to release 1,000 prisoners on each side was the only significant outcome of the meeting between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul last week, which marked the first time the two sides have met directly since soon after Russia’s full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“We are bringing our people home,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X, adding that 390 people arrived back to Ukraine on Friday. He said the group included 270 military and 120 civilians.

Ukrainian prisoners wave flags in celebration after the swap on Friday. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky via Telegram/Reuters

The Ukrainian Coordination Center for Treatment of Prisoners of War said three women and 387 men were among those released on Friday.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that “270 Russian servicemen and 120 civilians” were returned to Russia. It said the civilians were captured by Ukrainian troops in Kursk, the Russian region to which Ukraine launched a surprise incursion last summer. Russia has since reclaimed most of the territory.

However, Zelensky said later that the Russian civilians returned by Ukraine were “Russian saboteurs and collaborators” who were arrested by Ukrainian law enforcement officers.

As in previous exchanges, the released prisoners were brought to a meeting place in several buses after being released by Russia at the Ukrainian border. Many were given Ukrainian flags and bracelets in Ukrainian colours at the border.

Photos and videos released by the Ukrainian government showed dozens of men wearing military fatigues, most of them with their heads shaved, posing wrapped in flags.

Several of the released men could be seen speaking to their loved ones over the phone, some breaking into tears as they hear the voices on the other side.

One video showed people from villages along the route of the convoy coming out with flags, greeting the returnees.

“I feel joy because I’m home, that’s all. I’m happy for you, for us, that we came… we prayed and asked for this to happen,” Vasyl Gulyach, who spent two and a half years in captivity, told CNN.

CNN also spoke to Anton Kobylnyk, a 29-year-old who spent over three years in captivity. “I am yours, I received your letter,” he told his girlfriend Yulia on the phone. “What you have done, waiting for me for these 37 months, is a very great feat on your part and an invaluable contribution to our relationship,” he told her.

At the same time, Russian soldiers who have been taken prisoner by Ukraine were handed over to Russian authorities at the border.

On the Ukrainian side, dozens of people waited for hours to greet the returnees at a meeting place in Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine, many hoping to see their family members among those being brought back.

Ukrainian prisoners released Friday tie bracelets in the color of the Ukrainian flag to their wrists. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky via Telegram/Reuters

Many brought Ukrainian flags and photographs of their loved ones – in case any of the returnees would recognize them and give them information about their whereabouts.

As they waited, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine, indicating that a Russian attack could be imminent.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been snatched by Russian authorities in occupied Ukraine and deported into Russia where they have been held without charge or trial.

Their status is complicated – because they have been detained illegally, Ukraine sees them as civilian hostages. Russia has, in some cases, claimed that they should be recognized as prisoners of war – something Kyiv has been reluctant to do because it could put civilians living in occupied areas of Ukraine at risk of being arbitrarily detained.

Agreement struck at the Istanbul meeting

Ukrainian and Russian authorities were not expected to publicly state that it was taking place until after it had been completed. However, US President Donald Trump broke that convention on Friday, announcing the swap on social media as it was unfolding.

The Istanbul meeting was initially proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to a ceasefire-or-sanctions ultimatum given to Moscow by Kyiv’s European allies – which many saw as a clear attempt by the Kremlin leader to distract and delay.

But while the return of hundreds of Ukrainian detainees will come as a huge relief to their families and loved ones, it remains somewhat underwhelming as the only tangible outcome of the highly touted meeting.

In his daily address, Zelensky said Friday’s prisoner exchange was the “only significant result” of last week’s meeting in Turkey, adding that Russia was blocking “everything else.”

Prisoner swaps have been happening regularly, most recently earlier this month.

The Ukrainian Coordination Center for Treatment of Prisoners of War said the exchange on May 7, which saw more than 200 Ukrainian service members return home, was the fifth swap this year and the 64th since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The department said at the time that at 4,757 Ukrainian citizens have been released since March 2022.

Ukraine and its allies demanded that Russia agree to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Istanbul, but that did not happen.

Kyiv also offered direct talks between Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

CNN —

Russia said Sunday that trains carrying more bodies of Ukrainian soldiers were due to depart toward the Ukrainian border, escalating a spat with Kyiv over a prisoner of war swap.

“I can tell you that in just an hour, repatriation trains carrying the bodies of military personnel will also begin to move,” Russia’s Lieutenant General Alexander Zorin said on Sunday, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

The transfer of “more than 6,000 bodies” was agreed earlier this week during peace talks in Istanbul, Zorin said, blaming Ukraine for failing to “confirm receipt” of other bodies of Ukrainian soldiers which Russia claims it moved to an exchange area near Novaya Guta, Belarus on Saturday.

Kyiv firmly rejected the accusations, with Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, saying that his country was strictly adhering to the agreements reached at peace talks in Istanbul.

Budanov said that the start of “repatriation measures” was scheduled to take place next week, which he claims the Russian side was told on Tuesday. “Everything is going according to plan,” he said.

A planned exchange of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war failed to take place on Saturday, with Moscow accusing Kyiv of postponing the swap at the last minute, something Ukrainian officials dismissed as “dirty information games” from the Kremlin.

Despite three years of fighting such exchanges have been commonplace throughout the conflict and the swap was the only concrete outcome of the talks in Istanbul this week.

Russia said Ukraine unexpectedly postponed a transfer involving prisoners of war and the bodies of dead soldiers on Saturday, leaving hundreds of Ukrainian bodies waiting in refrigerated trucks at an exchange point with no one to collect them.

Ukraine rejected Russia’s account of the events, saying that the two sides had agreed to exchange seriously wounded and young troops on Saturday but a date had not yet been set for the repatriation of soldiers’ bodies.

During a second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange more prisoners this weekend. Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia’s delegation for peace talks with Ukraine, said this week that the exchange would be the largest since the start of the three-year war.

“In strict accordance with the Istanbul agreements, the Russian side began a humanitarian operation to transfer more than 6,000 bodies of killed Ukrainian servicemen,” as well as badly wounded soldiers under the age of 25, Medinsky said Saturday afternoon on Telegram.

He claimed that 1,212 bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers were at the exchange point, with the rest “on their way.” He also said that Russia gave Ukraine the first list of 640 prisoners of war for exchange, listed as “wounded, seriously ill and young people,” in order to start the swap.

In a video posted by Russia’s Defense Ministry on Telegram, two men wearing hazmat suits are seen opening the doors to the back of a truck parked on the side of a road. Inside the truck were dozens of sealed white bags, which the ministry said contained the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.

Medinsky said Russia’s Defense Ministry contact group was waiting at the border with Ukraine, but alleged that Kyiv had “unexpectedly postponed the transfer of bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war for an indefinite period” and had given “pretty weird reasons” for doing so.

Ukraine swiftly rejected the accusations, saying Medinsky’s claims “do not correspond to reality.” It said the exchange of prisoners of war and soldiers’ bodies were separate processes.

“Unfortunately, instead of constructive dialogue, we are again faced with manipulations and attempts to use sensitive humanitarian issues for informational purposes,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War wrote on Telegram.

“We call on the Russian side to stop playing dirty games,” it added.

On Saturday, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-installed governor of the Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, published a list of 97 names of Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen whose bodies were supposed to part of the transfer.

“We will begin to make public the lists of identified bodies so that relatives can find their dead,” Balitsky said on Telegram.

A large-scale prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine — the only concrete outcome of peace talks — was thrown into doubt Saturday after Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of delaying and thwarting the swap.

The hold-up to an exchange that both sides said would take place this weekend came as Moscow’s army launched a barrage of missiles, drones and bombs across the country overnight and throughout Saturday, killing at least 10 people.

At talks in Istanbul on Monday, Kyiv and Moscow agreed to release all wounded soldiers and those aged under 25 who had been captured — more than 1,000 people on each side.

Russia said it would also hand back the remains of 6,000 killed Ukrainian soldiers.

Moscow on Saturday accused Ukraine of not turning up to collect the bodies and not agreeing a date to swap the captured soldiers, while Kyiv said Russia was playing “dirty games” by not sticking to the agreed parameters for the exchange.

“The Ukrainian side has unexpectedly postponed for an indefinite period both the acceptance of the bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war,” Russia’s top negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on social media.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said “the Ukrainian side is still refraining from setting a date” for the first stage of the prisoner swap.

‘Dirty games’

The exchange was set to be the largest of the war, topping last month’s 1,000-for-1,000 swap that was agreed at a first round of talks in Istanbul.

After the Istanbul talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it would take place this weekend, while Russia said it was ready for Saturday, Sunday or Monday.

Responding to Russia’s accusations, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said no date had been agreed for the return of bodies.

It also said a list of names Russia said would be released did not match the terms of the agreement.

“Unfortunately, instead of constructive dialogue, we are again faced with manipulations,” it said in a statement on social media.

“We call on the Russian side to stop playing dirty games and return to constructive work to bring people back to both sides and to clearly implement the agreement in the coming days,” it added.