This image shows firefighters on the site of a damaged apartment building reportedly hit by a Russian drone in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. (Photo via Reuters)
Ukraine says Russian missile and drone attacks have killed 12 amid a prisoner swap set to be the largest exchange between the two sides in the three-year war.
Russian drones and missiles caused at least 12 deaths and dozens of injuries in various regions of the country, Ukrainian sources reported on Sunday.
In Kiev, four people died and 26 were injured; in the Zhytomyr region, three people were killed and 12 people were injured; in Khmelnytskyi, four people died and five were wounded; and, in Mykolaiv, one person died and five were injured, according to Ukrainian reports.
Ukrainian sources reported other regions were hit as well, damaging buildings. Despite the reports, the two sides carried out an agreed multi-phase prisoner exchange.
Under the Russia-Ukraine agreement reached on May 16 in Istanbul another 307 Russian servicemen were freed on Saturday. In return, 307 POWs of the Kiev were transferred back to Ukraine.
Saturday’s swap was announced by Russia’s defense ministry, and separately by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a post on social media platform Telegram.
A short video released by the Russian defense ministry showed Russian service personnel disembarking from buses and posing with the Russian flag, as well as the flags of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire.
“Tomorrow we expect more,” Zelensky posted. “Our goal is to return each and every one of us from Russian captivity.”
It was the largest POW swap since Russia launched its special military operation in eastern Ukraine in February 2022.
The first phase of the prisoner swap took place on Friday when Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners, including 120 civilians.
The large-scale, multi-phase swap initiated by Russia is planned to continue until Sunday. Over three days, a total of 1,000 prisoners are expected to be released on each side.
The two sides have held swaps before, but none have been of this scale.
US President Donald Trump, who pledged to rapidly end the fighting, earlier congratulated the two countries for the swap.
“This could lead to something big???” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow would be willing to hand Ukraine a draft document outlining conditions for a long-term peace agreement once the current prisoner exchange was completed.
In the meantime, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defense systems had shot down 112 Ukrainian drones overnight.
In a statement on Friday morning, the ministry announced that more than a dozen regions in Russia had been targeted by Ukrainian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
