Ukraine war latest: Kyiv and Moscow exchange hundreds more prisoners

At least three people have been killed and 11 others have been injured as Russian forces attacked Kyiv and other cities early this morning, officials said.

Officials in the Kyiv region said three people died in two small towns outside the capital.

The Russian attacks spanned a string of regional centres, including Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, as well as Mykolaiv in the south and Ternopil in the west.

In Kyiv, Timur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said 11 people were injured in drone strikes.

A five-storey apartment building was hit in the Holosiivskyi district just outside the city centre, triggering a fire that damaged the building’s exterior.

A private home and a business centre were damaged in strikes on other districts.

It was the second consecutive night that a mass attack took place.

A huge attack overnight on Ukraine by Russian drones and ballistic missiles was a fresh demonstration that Moscow is blocking a ceasefire deal to end the war, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“It was a tough night for all of Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel.

“With each such attack, the world becomes convinced that the reason for the war being dragged out is Moscow,” he wrote. “Only additional sanctions against key sectors of the Russian economy will force Moscow to agree to a ceasefire.”

The war-hit nation has been under relentless Russian attacks this week.

Russia launched dozens of attack drones and ballistic missiles at Kyiv yesterday in one of the biggest combined aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital of the three-year war, damaging several apartment buildings and injuring 15 people.

Research at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre by head of data science Sergey Mastitsky into Russian-language media – both traditional and social – shows a sharp rise in attention paid to prime minister Keir Starmer.

These are not random spikes – they reflect the Kremlin’s perception that Britain is back in the game.

The prime minister’s activities on the world stage have made him of great interest to Moscow, says Katia Glod:

Russian defence ministry has said its troops advancing slowly on the eastern front of the war in Ukraine have captured two settlements in Donetsk region as well as one in Ukraine’s northern region of Sumy.

A Russian Defence Ministry statement said its forces had captured the village of Stupochky in Donetsk region, east of Kostiantynivka, a town under recent Russian pressure.

It also said it had taken control of Otradne, a village further west along the 1,000-km front and announced the capture of Loknya, a village inside the Russian border in Sumy region.

The general staff of Ukraine’s military acknowledged no such losses, referring to Otradne as one of several towns where Ukrainian troops had halted 18 frontline Russian attacks.

It referred to Stupochky earlier this week as part of an area under Russian attack.

Since their failed advance on the capital Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, Russian forces have focused on capturing the Donbas in the east, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds more prisoners yesterday as part of a major swap of 1,000 prisoners of war agreed between both the countries.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s defense ministry said each side brought home 307 more soldiers on Saturday, a day after each released a total of 390 combatants and civilians.

Further releases expected over the weekend are set to make the swap the largest in more than three years of war.

“We expect more to come tomorrow,” Mr Zelensky said on his official Telegram channel.

Russia’s defence ministry also said it expected the exchange to be continued, though it did not give details.

More than 10 Russian drones were flying over the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and more were coming, a senior Ukrainian official said early this morning,

“There are more than 10 enemy drones in the airspace around the capital. More are coming,” Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv military administration, wrote on Telegram.

“We are in for a complicated night. There is the threat of a large number of enemy drones and missiles aboard strategic aircraft,” he said.

Witnesses heard anti-aircraft units in operation around the city, reported Reuters.

Russia said it faced a Ukrainian drone attack early this morning and intercepted or destroyed around 100 of the unmanned Ukrainian weapons including some aimed at Moscow.

The defence ministry reported its air defence units intercepted or destroyed 95 Ukrainian drones over a four-hour period. That included two near Moscow but most were over Russia’s central and southern regions.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin later said on Telegram that the number of drones destroyed or intercepted near the capital had risen to 11.

The drone attack has led to a closure of Moscow’s three airports, officials said.

Regional officials reported air defence units downed drones in the central city of Tula and the city of Tver northwest of Moscow.

Fragments from a Russian drone triggered a fire and caused damage to an apartment building in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Sunday, a senior Ukrainian official said.

Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, said the incident occurred in the Holosiivskyi district, just outside the city centre.

“The building has been partly destroyed and there is a fire. Rescue teams are at the site,” Tkachenko said.

Tkachenko earlier said there were 10 drones above the city and more coming.