Kyiv comes under a massive Russian drone and missile attack
Many residents were taking shelter in underground subway stations.
Ukraine’s capital came under a large-scale combined drone and missile attack late Friday, with explosions and machine gun fire heard throughout the city.
Many Kyiv residents were taking shelter in underground subway stations.
The night-time Russian attack that stretched into early on Saturday came hours after Russia and Ukraine began a major prisoner exchange, swapping hundreds of soldiers and civilians in the first phase of an exchange that was agreed on by the two sides at a meeting in Istanbul last week.
The agreement was a moment of co-operation in otherwise failed efforts to reach a ceasefire.
The debris of intercepted missiles and drones fell in at least four districts of the capital, acting head of Kyiv military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, wrote on Telegram.
According to Mr Tkachenko, six people required medical care and two fires were sparked at the Solomianskyi district of Kyiv.
The city’s mayor, Vitalii Klitschko, had warned residents of more than 20 Russian strike drones heading towards Kyiv.
The prisoners swap on Friday was the first phase of a complicated swap involving prisoners and civilians.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the first phase brought home 390 Ukrainians, with further releases expected over the weekend that will make it the largest swap of the war.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it received the same number from Ukraine.
The exchange, which would be the latest of dozens of swaps since the war began and the biggest involving Ukrainian civilians at one time, didn’t herald any halt in fighting.
Battles also continued along the roughly 620-mile front line, where tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed, and neither country has relented in its deep strikes.
After the Istanbul meeting, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan had called the prisoner swap a “confidence-building measure”.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that there has been no agreement yet on the venue for the next round of talks as diplomatic manoeuvring continued.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday night that Moscow would give Ukraine a draft document outlining its conditions for a “sustainable, long-term, comprehensive” peace agreement once the ongoing prisoner exchange had finished.
European leaders have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet in peace efforts while he tries to press his larger army’s battlefield initiative and capture more Ukrainian land.
The Istanbul meeting revealed that both sides remained far apart on key conditions for ending the fighting.
One such condition for Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, is a temporary ceasefire as a first step toward a peaceful settlement.
