Ukraine sent dozens of its own citizens to Russia last month, releasing them from prisons in an attempt to secure the release of dozens of Ukrainian civilians held illegally in Russian jails – a move described by human rights activists as desperate and worrying.

According to the Ukrainian government, 70 Ukrainian civilians convicted of collaborating with Russia were released as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow last month.

Ukraine said all of them went into exile voluntarily, as part of a government scheme that gives anyone convicted of collaborating with Russia the option of being sent there.

But human rights groups and international lawyers say the scheme is problematic, contradicts previous statements made by the Ukrainian government, and could potentially put more people at risk of being snatched by the Russians.

“I completely understand the sentiment, we all want the people (who are detained in Russia) to be released as quickly as possible and Russia has no will to do that… but the solution that is offered is definitely not the right one,” said Onysiia Syniuk, a legal analyst at Zmina, a Ukrainian human rights group.

The program, called “I want to go to my own,” was launched last year by Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service and the parliament’s Commissioner for Human Rights.

A government website outlining the program includes photos and personal information of some of the 300 Ukrainian people that the government says have signed up to the program.

The profiles of 31 of them are stamped with a picture of a suitcase and the words “HAS LEFT,” with a note saying he or she “left for Russia while at the same time real Ukrainians returned home.”

Bargaining chips

According to Kyiv, at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians are known to be detained in Russia, although the real number is likely to be much higher. Some 37,000 Ukrainians, including civilians, children and members of the military, are officially recognized as missing.

Many have been detained in occupied territories, detained for months or even years without any charges or trial, and deported to Russia. They include activists, journalists, priests, politicians and community leaders as well as people who appear to have been snatched by Russian troops at random at checkpoints and other places in occupied Ukraine.

The detention of civilians by an occupying power is illegal under international laws of conflict, except for in a few narrowly defined situations and with strict time limits.

Because of that, there is no established legal framework for the treatment and exchange of civilian detainees in the same way there is for prisoners of war.

Russia has, in some cases, claimed that the Ukrainian civilians it is holding are prisoners of war and should be recognized as such by Ukraine. Kyiv has been reluctant to do so because it could put civilians living in occupied areas of Ukraine at risk of being arbitrarily detained by Russia as it seeks to grow its pool for future exchanges.

Kyiv has rallied its allies to increase pressure on Russia over the issue and tried to get Moscow to agree to release the detained civilians through third countries, similar to the way some Ukrainian children have been returned with the help of Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican.

Several international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), have also repeatedly called on Moscow to unconditionally release its civilian detainees.

Russia has ignored the pleas.

The “I want to go to my own” program is an attempt by Kyiv to get some of the detained civilians back without having to recognize them as prisoners of war.

But human rights groups are urging the Ukrainian government to continue to press for unconditional release of civilians. “Under international humanitarian law, it is not possible to talk about exchanging civilians. All civilians unlawfully detained must be released unconditionally,” said Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher on Ukraine at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Announcing the 1,000 for 1,000 exchange, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted as much.

“I would like to thank our law enforcement officers today for adding Russian saboteurs and collaborators to the exchange fund,” the president said, while also thanking Ukrainian soldiers for capturing Russian troops on the front lines.

‘Political prisoners’

But it seems that the scheme did not yield the results Kyiv was hoping for.

The headquarters said the returnees included a group of at least 60 Ukrainian civilians who were convicted of criminal offenses unrelated to the war.

After completing their sentences, Russian authorities were supposed to deport these prisoners from the occupied territories back to Ukraine. Instead, it kept them, unlawfully, in detention centers normally used for illegal immigrants and only released them as part of the 1,000 for 1,000 prisoner swap.

The RussianHuman Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova described the convicted Ukrainian collaborators sent to Russia as “political prisoners,” but did not give any more details on who they were or what would happen to them next.

The “I want to go to my own” website gives details of some those sent to Russia in the prisoner exchange, including the offenses they were convicted of. Many were serving years-long sentences for collaboration with Moscow. Some were convicted of supporting the invasion or sharing information with Russian troops. Most received sentences of between five and eight years in prison.

But human rights lawyers say the Ukrainian collaboration law under which these people were sentenced is itself problematic.

HRW has previously issued an extensive report criticizing the anti-collaboration law, calling it flawed.

Gorbunova said the group analyzed close to 2,000 verdicts and that while there were genuine collaborators among them, a lot of them were “people who, under international humanitarian law, should not have been prosecuted.”

She said these included cases where there’s been “little or no harm done” and or where there was no intent to harm national security. Some of the cases involve people who had been working in public service in areas that were then occupied and who had simply continued doing their jobs.

“Helping people on the streets, people who are sick or have disabilities, distributing humanitarian aid. Teachers, firefighters, municipal workers who collect trash, that type of thing – they could be convicted of working for the occupation as collaborators,” she said.

“That is not to say that there are no actual collaborators who commit crimes against national security…who should be punished, (but) this legislation is so vague that essentially a very wide range of activities of people living and working under occupation could qualify as collaboration, which is troubling and problematic,” she said.

While the initiative’s website includes what it says are handwritten notes from each of the convicted collaborators indicating their wish to leave for Russia, human rights organizations say the way in which they have been disowned by their country is ethically dubious.

The Israeli military says it has killed the leader of a Palestinian militant group that took part in the October 7, 2023, terror attacks on southern Israel.

Asaad Abu Sharia, who led the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and its armed wing the Mujahideen Brigades, was killed in a joint operation with Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Saturday.

His death and that of his brother Ahmed Abu Sharia were confirmed by the militant group hours after Gaza’s Civil Defense reported that an Israeli airstrike had hit their family home in the Sabra area of Gaza City.

Hamas run Al-Aqsa TV said the strike killed at least 15 people and injured several. Video showed people searching through the debris of a demolished four-story house.

The Mujahideen Brigades took part in the October 7 attacks alongside Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups and took hostage some of the most high-profile captives, including a family whose suffering became a symbol of the attack.

According to the Israeli military, Sharia was among the militant leaders who stormed Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where many residents were killed or taken hostage during the brutal terror assault that led to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Despite not being aware of Hamas’ plans in advance, fighters from the jihadist group joined in the cross-border assault “as an extension of the Hamas attack,” the Israeli military said.

According to Israel, Sharia was directly involved in the abduction and murders of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas – a family that became one of the most recognizable victims of the attack, partly because of the young ages of Kfir and Ariel, who were nine months and four years old respectively at the time.

Kfir was the youngest hostage kidnapped into Gaza and the youngest to have been killed. The boys’ mother, Shiri, was 32 at the time of her kidnap. Their father Yarden was also captured, but was released alive in February after 484 days in captivity.

Reacting to news of Sharia’s killing, the Bibas family expressed their “heartfelt gratitude” to the Israeli military, saying his death was “another step on the journey towards closure.”

“While Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir cannot be brought back, we find some measure of comfort knowing these despicable murderers will not harm another family,” the Bibas family said in a statement shared via the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

Israel’s military said Sharia was also involved in the abduction of the Israeli-American couple Gad Haggai and Judi Lynn Weinstein Haggai and the abduction and killing of Thai national Nattapong Pinta.

The Israeli-American couple were killed near their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the attack in 2023. The body of Nattapong, an agricultural worker who was abducted alive on October 7, was recovered from southern Gaza in a military operation on Friday.

Israel said it believes the Mujahideen Brigades are still holding the body of an additional foreign national. The group has previously denied killing their captives.

Colombian senator Miguel Uribe, in the running to join next year’s presidential race, has been shot at an event in Bogota, according to national police.

The mayor of Bogota, Carlos Galán, said Uribe was receiving emergency care after being attacked in the Fontibon district on Saturday and that the “entire hospital network” of the Colombian capital was on alert in case he needed to be transferred.

The mayor added that the suspected attacker had been arrested.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro expressed his solidarity with the senator’s family in a tweet on X, saying, “I don’t know how to ease your pain. It is the pain of a mother lost, and of a wounded homeland.”

Colombia’s government has issued a statement condemning the attack on Uribe.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

They know all about glory days on the Kop – the fabled terrace that is the spiritual home of fans of Liverpool – England’s Premier League champions.

But they’re more used to legends like Kenny Dalglish or Mohamed Salah banging in goals than political cries for help. So, it was surreal to watch alongside thousands of middle-aged Brits as Bruce Springsteen bemoaned America’s democracy crisis on hallowed footballing ground.

“The America that I love … a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous” administration, Springsteen said at Anfield Stadium on Wednesday night.

The Boss’s latest warnings of authoritarianism on his European tour were impassioned and drew large cheers. But they did seem to go over the heads of some fans who don’t live in the whirl of tension constantly rattling America’s national psyche.

Liverpudlians waited for decades for Springsteen to play the hometown of The Beatles, whose “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” set his life’s course when he heard it on the radio as a youngster in New Jersey.

Most had a H-H-H-Hungry heart for a party. They got a hell of a show. But also, a lesson on US civics.

“Tonight, we ask all of you who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices, stand with us against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!” Springsteen said.

His European odyssey is unfolding as Western democracies are being shaken again by right-wing populism. So, his determination to engage with searing commentary therefore raises several questions.

What is the role of artists in what Springsteen calls “dangerous times?” Can they make a difference, or should stars of entertainment and sports avoid politics and stick to what they know? Fox News polemicist Laura Ingraham once told basketball icon LeBron James, for instance, that he should just “shut up and dribble.”

Springsteen’s gritty paeans to steel towns and down-on-their-luck cities made him a working-class balladeer. But as blue-collar voters stampede to the right, does he really speak for them now?

Then there’s this issue that Springsteen emphatically tried to answer in Liverpool this week: Does the rough but noble America he’s been mythologizing for 50 years even exist anymore?

How Springsteen and Trump mine the same societal ground

Trump certainly wants to bring the arts to heel – given his social media threats to “highly overrated” Springsteen, Taylor Swift and other superstars and his takeover of the Kennedy Center in Washington. Any center of liberal and free thought from pop music to Ivy League universities is vulnerable to authoritarian impulses.

But it’s also true that celebrities often bore with their trendy political views, especially preaching at Hollywood awards ceremonies. Springsteen, however, has been penning social commentary for decades. And what’s the point of rock ’n’ roll if not rebellion? Rockers usually revolt in their wild-haired youth, rather than in their mid-70s, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Oddly, given their transatlantic dialogue of recent weeks, Trump and Springsteen mine the same political terrain – globalization’s economic and spiritual hollowing of industrial heartlands.

“Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows, And vacant stores, Seems like there ain’t nobody, Wants to come down here no more,” Springsteen sang in 1984 in “My Hometown” long before Trump set his sights on the Oval Office.

The White House sometimes hits similar notes, though neither the Boss nor Trump would welcome the comparison. “The main street in my small town, looks a heck of a lot worse than it probably did decades ago before I was alive,” Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said rather less poetically in March.

Political fault lines are also shifting. In the US and Europe, the working class is rejecting the politics of hope and optimism in dark times.

And the Democratic politicians that Springsteen supported – like defeated 2004 nominee John Kerry, who borrowed Springsteen’s “No Surrender” as his campaign anthem, and former President Barack Obama – failed to mend industrial blight that acted as a catalyst to Trumpism.

Shifting political landscapes in England and the US

There are warning signs in England too. The Boss’s UK tours often coincided with political hinge moments. In the 1970s he found synergy with the smoky industrial cities of the North. In his “Born in the USA” period, he sided with miners clashing with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. A new BBC documentary revealed this week he gave $20,000 in the 1980s to a strikers’ support group.

Liverpool, a soulful, earthy city right out of the Springsteen oeuvre is a longtime Labour Party heartland. But in a recent by-election, Nigel Farage’s populist, pro-Trump, Reform Party overturned a Labour majority of nearly 15,000 in Runcorn, a decayed industrial town, 15 miles upstream from Liverpool on the River Mersey. This stunner showed Labour’s working class “red wall” is in deep peril and could follow US states like Ohio in shifting to the right as workers reject progressives.

Labour Cabinet Minister Lisa Nandy, whose Wigan constituency is nearby, warned in an interview with the New Statesman magazine this month that political tensions were reaching a breaking point in the North.

“People have watched their town centers falling apart, their life has got harder over the last decade and a half … I don’t remember a time when people worked this hard and had so little to show for it,” Nandy said, painting a picture that will be familiar to many Americans.

In another sign of a seismic shift in British politics last week, Reform came a close third in an unprecedented result in a parliamentary by-election in a one-time industrial heartland outside Glasgow. Scotland has so far been immune to the populist wave – but the times are changing.

Still, there’s not much evidence Trump or his populist cousins in the UK will meaningfully solve heartland pain. They’ve always been better at exploiting vulnerability than fixing it. And Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would hurt the poor by cutting access to Medicaid and nutrition help while handing the wealthy big tax cuts.

“When conditions in a country are ripe for a demagogue, you can bet one will show up,” Springsteen told the crowd in Liverpool, introducing “Rainmaker” a song about a conman who tells drought-afflicted farmers that “white’s black and black is white.” As the E Street Band struck up, Springsteen said: “This is for America’s dear leader.”

A battle for America’s soul

Springsteen has his “Land of Hope and Dreams.” But Trump has his new “Golden Age.” He claims he can “Make America Great Again” by attacking perceived bastions of liberal power like elite universities and the press, with mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and by challenging due process.

Springsteen implicitly rejected this as un-American while in Liverpool, infusing extra meaning into the lyrics of “Long Walk Home,” a song that predates Trump’s first election win by a decade: “Your flag flyin’ over the courthouse, Means certain things are set in stone. Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.”

Sending fans into a cool summer night, the Boss pleaded with them not to give up on his country.

“The America I’ve sung to you about for 50 years now is real, and regardless of its many faults, is a great country with a great people and we will survive this moment,” he said.

But his fight with Trump for America’s soul will go on. The contrast would be driven home more sharply to Americans if he tours on US soil at this, the most overtly politicized phase of a half-century-long career.

Perhaps in America’s 250th birthday year in 2026?