Russia and Ukraine started exchanging prisoners on Monday, hours after Moscow attacked Ukraine with the largest drone assault of the war.
Russia has been intensifying its attacks on Ukraine as peace talks stall. The latest round of talks between the two sides, earlier this month in Istanbul, yielded little result apart from another agreement to swap prisoners.
On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that an exchange was underway. Without specifying numbers, the ministry said in a statement that Russia had received “the first group” of Russian troops and had sent an equal number to the Ukrainian side.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine confirmed that a swap of “the wounded, the severely wounded, and those under the age of 25” had begun, adding that the exchange would continue “in several stages over the coming days.”
“Ukrainians are returning home from Russian captivity,” he wrote on social media.
Earlier on Monday, the Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had launched 479 drones and 20 missiles overnight — the largest number of drones recorded since the war began more than three years ago. Most were intercepted, but 10 strikes were recorded, according to the air force.
One person was killed in the Rivne region of western Ukraine and a Russian strike damaged a private home in the Kyiv region, according to the local authorities. Officials in the Sumy region, in the northeast, said that nine people had been injured over the past day. There were no other immediate reports of further damage or casualties.
Russia has been stepping up attacks in recent months, an effort that appears to have escalated further after Ukraine mounted a large-scale, coordinated assault on Russian air bases on June 1. In the days since, Russia launched one of the biggest aerial assaults of the war — which Moscow described as retaliation for the surprise Ukrainian strikes on its bombers.
Amid the intensified bombardment, Mr. Zelensky has urged civilians to pay attention to air-raid warnings.
“Please take care of yourselves,” he said in his overnight address. “Take care of yourselves and Ukraine.”
As Russia has escalated aerial attacks, it also has been stepping up frontline assaults and has opened a new front in northern Ukraine.
But Ukraine has continued to try to take the war to Russia, including with the attack on Russian air bases and with further drone strikes deep inside the country.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that its air defenses had destroyed or jammed 49 Ukrainian drones overnight. Rosaviatsia, Russia’s aviation regulator, reported that four airports in the center of the country had temporarily suspended operations overnight because of security concerns.
Ukraine’s military claimed it had targeted a Russian airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region and a facility in Cheboksary, both east of Moscow. Those claims could not immediately be confirmed independently.
Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting.
Maria Varenikova covers Ukraine and its war with Russia.
Ivan Nechepurenko covers Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the countries of the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
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