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Overnight strikes follow days of some 800 Ukrainian attacks on targets inside Russia
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At least 14 people were injured after Russia attacked Ukraine‘s capital Kyiv early today with drones and missiles, triggering fires and strewing debris in districts throughout the city, the city’s mayor said.
The overnight strikes come after several days of some 800 attacks on targets inside Russia, including capital Moscow. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov vowed yesterday to respond to those attacks.
Yesterday, Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Vladimir Putin of making a “mockery of the entire world” in its delay to respond to calls for a ceasefire after the first stage of a large-scale prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.
The Ukrainian president renewed calls for global pressure on Moscow for a ceasefire after 390 prisoners were returned to Ukraine yesterday, with more to follow over the weekend in the “thousand for a thousand” war swap. The swap took place at the border with Belarus in northern Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official.
“It is clearly time to increase the pressure on Russia, to achieve not just one result, but everything that is necessary,” Mr Zelensky said in a video on X.
At least 14 people were injured in one of the biggest combined drone and ballistic missile attacks to date on the Ukrainian capital, the city’s military administration said in a post on messaging app Telegram on Saturday.
The Ukrainian air force said that Russia launched 250 long-range drones overnight, with the target being Kyiv.
Below you can see the latest map of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The map has been provided by the British Ministry of Defence, who has been publishing regular intelligence updates on the state of the war on Ukraine.
Ukraine and the US have finished setting up the US-Ukraine reconstruction fund, the core part of the agreement to share profits from new Ukrainian resource projects.
Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said all procedures to set up the fund were completed on Friday.
“The Fund is now officially launched,” she said on X.
Read more about the fund and why it was created here.
Yulia Navalnaya has said Donald Trump’s negotiations with Russia on Ukraine are making Vladimir Putin “feel stronger”.
The Russian activist and widow of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny said Trump speaking to the Russian president “like they’re equal” is making him more powerful.
She made the remarks while speaking at a sold-out event with Alastair Campbell at Wales’ Hay Festival on Friday, which The Independent is once again partnering with.
Athena Stavrou reports live from Hay Festival:
Earlier on Friday, US president Donald Trump heralded the Ukraine and Russia prisoner swap, before it had been completed.
“A major prisoners swap was just completed between Russia and Ukraine,” he wrote on Friday morning US time.
“It will go into effect shortly. Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted photographs of the 390 released Ukrainian captives, all with shaven heads, celebrating their release and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
Ukrainian media outlet Espreso TV published a video of the wife of a prisoner crying tears of joy, wrapped in a flag on Kyiv’s Independence Square. She said she had been waiting for her husband’s release since 2022, and had just received the call from Ukrainian authorities confirming the good news.
“We waited, hoped and fought,” said the woman, whose name was given as Victoria.
At least eight people were injured after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early today with drones and missiles, triggering fires, strewing debris in districts throughout the city, the city’s mayor said.
Reuters reported successive waves of drones flying over Kyiv and a series of explosions jolting the city.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two residents had required hospital treatment and that air defence units were in action.
Pictures posted online showed smoke billowing from the top of one block of flats and flames leaping from part of another as emergency crews trained water on it.
An orange-red glow lit up the city as plumes of smoke wafted across the horizon.
Mr Klitschko said fragments from one drone struck the top floor of an apartment building in the Solomynskyi 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.
Russia released 390 Ukrainian prisoners on Friday including 120 civilians in part of the first stage of a prisoner of war exchange with Ukraine.
Ukraine also returned 390 Russian prisoners, who will undergo medical treatment in Belarus before returning home.
Russia needs to strengthen its position in the global arms market by increasing exports of weapons, country’s president Vladimir Putin said.
In televised remarks, he also said the country’s military complex needs more state support to develop its potential.
“The portfolio of orders for Russian military products is now serious. It is tens of billions of dollars. And it is necessary to actively increase the volume of export deliveries,” Mr Putin said.
He also singled out weapons that utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“The future of the global arms market lies with such technology. Strong competition will unfold here, and is already unfolding, for which we must be prepared,” Mr Putin said.
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