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Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine have killed at least 13 people and injured 56 civilians across the country since Friday, according to regional officials.
Russia launched 250 drones and 14 ballistic missiles against Kyiv alone, Ukraine’s air force said, causing fires in residential buildings.
At least 14 people were injured in the capital. It was one of the biggest combined aerial assaults on the city since the war began.
The air force said it had downed six missiles and 245 drones.
“With each such attack, the world becomes more certain that the cause of prolonging the war lies in Moscow,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X.
The overnight barrage came as Russia and Ukraine are taking part in prisoner swaps agreed after talks between the two sides in Turkey.
Describing a “difficult night”, Zelensky said there had been fires and explosions across Kyiv with homes, businesses and cars damaged by strikes or falling debris.
Four people were killed in the eastern Donetsk Region; five in the southern Odesa and Kherson regions and four in the northeast Kharkiv region.
Olha Chyrukha, a 64-year-old Kyiv resident, told Reuters news agency: “I wish they’d agree to a ceasefire. To bomb people like this – poor children. My three-year-old granddaughter was screaming scared.”
Commenting on the combined use of aerial weapons, Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said: “The enemy is improving its own tactics of using drones, while simultaneously striking with ballistics.”
Zelensky said only “additional sanctions targeting key sectors of the Russian economy” could push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire.
Last week, Russia said Ukraine had launched hundreds of exploding drones at the country, including strikes over Moscow. The Russia’s defence ministry said that 485 drones had been shot down.
On Saturday, Zelensky announced that 307 Ukrainian prisoners had returned home as part of an exchange deal with the Kremlin.
On Friday, Ukraine and Russia each handed over 390 soldiers and civilians in the biggest prisoner exchange since Russia launched its full-scale assault in February 2022.
The two countries have agreed to swap a total of 1,000 prisoners each, and another exchange is expected on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump, who has pledged but so far failed to end the war, suggested on social media that the swap “could lead to something big???”.
Earlier this week, Trump had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war, after which he said the Kremlin and Ukraine would “immediately start” negotiations for a ceasefire.
However, Putin has only said Russia would work with Ukraine to craft a “memorandum on a possible future peace agreement”, and failed to address calls for a 30-day ceasefire.
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