A massive attack of drones and resurrected Russian missiles at least eight in kyiv earlier this Saturday, May 24, the day when the two belligerents must carry out the second phase of a prison record exchange.
“The capital and its region again suffer a massive attack on the part of the enemy. Anti -Avion Defense systems constantly operate in kyiv and their suburbs,” said kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko in Telegram. These attacks made at least eight injured, two of which were hospitalized and the other care in the spot, he added.
AFP journalists heard explosions during the night. kyiv’s mayor and civil and military administration reported several firefighters and drone debris in buildings in a large number of city districts.
Several Russian attacks since the beginning of the week
The earliest Friday, two people died in Russian strikes in the port of Odessa (South) and three in the Kherson region (South). The Russian army, meanwhile, indicated that Ukraine had attacked the Russian territory with 788 drones and missiles since Tuesday, 776 of which have been sacrificed.
These attacks arise as Russia and Ukraine have begun a record exchange of prisoners that in total must involve “1,000 for 1,000” people for three days. This exchange is the only tangible result of negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians in Istanbul in mid -May. The first component of the exchange on Friday focused on 270 soldiers and 120 civilians of each camp. The following phases are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
In the Cheriguiv region, where the Ukrainians released by the Russians were brought, hundreds of people, mainly women, expected to wave banners and portraits, said an AFP journalist. Some cried, cried or acclaimed buses full of weight with slimming men with one voice, which greeted them in return for the windows.
“The first step in the best exchange”
When the ancient captives left the bus, wrapped in Ukrainian flags, the families rushed towards them, stretching their portraits of their loved one to find out if they had seen him during their captivity.
Russia provides very little information about the destiny of Ukrainian prisoners and each exchange reserves their part of surprises, said a high -ranking Ukrainian official anonymously. “In almost all exchanges, there are people that nobody knew anything,” he said. “Sometimes people who were in the lists of missing people or who were considered dead.”
“This is the first stage of the greatest exchange” since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he submitted to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in his speech on Friday night.
On the Russian side, Moscow announced that 270 soldiers and 120 civilians were also recovered on Friday, including “residents of the Koursk region captured by the Ukrainian armed forces” during their offensive in the summer of 2024.
Trump welcomes the exchange of prisoners
The exchange of prisoners and soldiers killed in combat remains one of the latest areas of cooperation between kyiv and Moscow, while Russia occupies about 20% of the Ukrainian territory. Friday’s exchange was announced by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, who said he wanted to bring the two belligerents to negotiate to put an end to the “blood bath” as quickly as possible.
“Congratulations to the two games for this negotiation. This could lead to something huge?” Wrote the president of the United States in his social network of truth.
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, said Friday that Moscow worked in a document that exposes “the conditions for a sustainable, global agreement already long term on the regulations” of the conflict, which will be sent to Ukraine once the exchange of prisoners is finalized. Kyiv must do the same for its own conditions.
Source: BFM TV
