Kyiv comes under massive Russian drone, missile attack

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Almost 400 Ukrainian troops have been freed by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says.
Almost 400 Ukrainian troops have been freed by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says.

Russia has attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with waves of drones and missiles, triggering fires, strewing debris in districts throughout the city and injuring at least eight people, the city’s mayor says.

Reuters witnesses saw and heard successive drones flying over Kyiv, and a series of explosions jolted the city.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two residents had required hospital treatment and that air defence units were in action.

Klitschko said fragments from one drone struck the top floor of an apartment building in the Solomyanskyi district on the west bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects the city. One apartment building was on fire in the area as was one non-residential building.

Russian drone attack in Kyiv
People in Kyiv took shelter in a subway station during the Russian drone and missile attack. (AP PHOTO)

Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said a fire had also broken out on two floors of an apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the opposite bank.

An air alert remained in effect more than two hours after it was first declared.

The overnight strikes followed several days of Ukrainian drone attacks – some 800 attacks – on targets inside Russia, including capital Moscow.

Separately, Russia and Ukraine each released 390 prisoners and say they will free more in the coming days, in what is expected to be the biggest prisoner swap of the war so far.

The agreement to exchange 1000 prisoners each was the only concrete step towards peace to emerge last week from the first direct talks between the warring sides in more than three years, when they failed to agree a ceasefire.

Freed Russian soldiers
Russian soldiers released by Ukrainian forces in an exchange took place in Belarus, officials say. (AP PHOTO)

Both sides said they had each released 270 soldiers and 120 civilians on Friday, with more due to be released on Saturday and Sunday.

The freed Russians are currently in Belarus, which neighbours Ukraine, receiving psychological and medical assistance before being moved to Russia for further care, the Russian Defence Ministry said. 

They include civilians captured inside Russia’s Kursk region during a Ukrainian incursion.

“Today, 390 people are back home,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a televised address that confirmed the plan for both sides to release 1000 in the coming days.

“We will definitely return everyone. Every one of our citizens.”

The released Ukrainians arrived at a hospital in the northern Chernihiv region in buses and filed out, pale, most of them with shaven heads and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.

Referring to the prisoner swap earlier on Friday, US President Donald Trump, who had pressed the sides to meet last week, wrote on Truth Social: “Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???”

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been wounded or killed in the war, although neither side publishes accurate casualty figures. 

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have also died as Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Ukrainian cities.

Ukraine says it is ready for a 30-day ceasefire immediately.

Russia, which launched the war by invading its neighbour in 2022 and occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, says it will not pause its assaults until conditions are met first. 

A member of the Ukrainian delegation called those conditions “non-starters”.

with PA

Reuters