In response to dozens of attack drones and ballistic missile launches overnight by Moscow’s forces at Kyiv, Russian and Ukrainian officials have exchanged more prisoners of war (POWs).
In exchange for as many Russian servicemen who are being cared for in Belarus before returning to Russia, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday that it had released 307 Ukrainian POWs.
Army soldiers, State Border Guard Service agents, and members of the Ukrainian National Guard were among those who were returned, according to Ukraine, according to the country.
The largest prisoner exchange since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 saw 270 servicemen and 120 civilians each be released on Friday by the two countries.
Although the aerial attacks and ground fighting continue, neither side has agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners.
At least 15 people were hurt in the capital as a result of overnight attacks launched from various Russian regions, according to the Ukrainian military, which involved 250 drones and 14 ballistic missiles hitting Kyiv and other areas, as well as damaging several apartment buildings and a shopping mall.
Ukrainian forces claimed that 245 drones, many of which were said to be Iranian-designed, were used to shoot down six of the ballistic missiles and 245 other targets in the Ukrainian regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Zaporizhia.
In the wake of numerous Russian attacks, regional state administrator Oleh Syniehubov reported on Saturday morning that four Ukrainians had been killed and several others had been injured in the area.
At least 100 Ukrainian drones attempted to attack Russian targets overnight, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. It claimed 10 additional drone launches on Saturday morning and the overnight downfall of 64 unmanned aerial vehicles in the Belgorod region.
More than a dozen projectiles were shot down over Kursk, Lipetsk, and Voronezh, according to the report, and five more were shot down over Tver, which is located northwest of Moscow.
“Difficult night”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, claimed in a social media post that it had a “difficult night” that needed to persuade the world that “the reason the war is being dragged out is in Moscow.”
“We need to put much more pressure on Russia,” he said, “to get results and start real diplomacy.” We are anticipating sanctions from our allies, including the US, Europe, and China. Moscow will agree to a ceasefire if key economic sectors are subject to additional sanctions.
Russia will face additional sanctions if it doesn’t agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine, according to the Group of Seven countries’ threats on Friday.
Andrii Sybiha, the foreign minister of Ukraine, claimed that Moscow has not yet sent a “peace memorandum” following discussions in Istanbul, Turkiye, and other cities that had only led to an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war.
Instead, he wrote in a post on X that “Russia sends deadly drones and missiles at civilians,” adding that “more sanctions pressure on Moscow is required to ratchet up the peace process.”
According to Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, who is a reporter from Kyiv, Zelenskyy wanted a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin, so he was disappointed at the Istanbul meeting.
It was a much lower-level meeting, according to the organizers. However, they did manage to secure this prisoner swap, he claimed, adding that the exchanges might have ended by Sunday, but no specifics were given.
Source: Aljazeera
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