Ukraine underwent a new early massive air attack this Sunday, May 25, which left at least nine dead, while in Moscow the Ukrainian drones forced airports to temporary closures, a few hours before a last exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine.
This is the second night of important attacks against Ukraine, after about 250 drones and 14 ballistic missiles detected on the night of Friday to Saturday by the Ukrainian Air Forces, mostly pointing to the capital.
Ukrainian emergency services described a “horror night in the kyiv region” on Sunday, in a message on Telegram. “The massive night attack left four dead and 16 injured, including three children” in the region. They also reported that a man found dead, and five injured, in the southern region of Mykolaïv, after “that a five -story building was beaten by a drone during a night attack”, triggering a fire.
Four people also died and five wounds in the Khmelnytskyi region, the western city of Ukraine, in Russian strikes, said Serguii Tiourine, deputy director of the region of the region on Sunday, according to an initial evaluation.
Drones detected in Kyiv
According to the city authorities, more than a dozen Russian drones were detected on Sunday morning in kyiv, and AFP journalists heard explosions. Most of the country was placed under air alert after the cruise missile fire.
Air defenses have fired five drones and eleven missiles only in the Kryvyi platform region, said the regional military administration in the center of the country, Oleksandr Vikoul. Attacks in Kherson’s regions have also been reported in the south of the country, and ternopil in the West, by local authorities.
“The enemy runs the risk of using a lot of drones and missiles of strategic plans,” said Timour Tkatchenko, head of the kyiv military administration in the early morning hours on Telegram. “kyiv is experiencing a massive attack,” said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko later.
In Moscow, Mayor Sergei Sobianine reported more than a dozen Ukrainian drones above the Russian capital, but has not informed the victims. “Emergency services staff works at the site where debris fell,” he wrote in Telegram. Four Muscovite airports, whose director, Cheremetievo, closed temporarily and then reopened on Sunday, according to the National Aviation Agency Rossaviatsia.
These attacks occur in full exchange of prisoners, a final stage scheduled for Sunday, the only tangible result of the first direct conversations between Russians and Ukrainians in mid -May in Istanbul.
A first exchange of prisoners on Saturday
On Saturday, 307 Russian warfares were exchanged for the same number of Ukrainian soldiers, kyiv and Moscow announced. The first part of this vast exchange, in 1,000 for 1,000 formats, had brought 270 soldiers and 120 civilians from each camp on Friday.
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.
After more than three years of struggle, the two countries have thousands of prisoners of war. Donald Trump announced Friday’s exchange, who said he wanted to bring the two belligerents to negotiate to put an end to the “bloodbath” as quickly as possible.
Moscow intends to exhibit “the conditions for a lasting agreement”
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.
“Ukraine is ready for any form of diplomacy that produces results, we are ready for all stages that will guarantee real security. It is Russia that is not ready to do anything,” the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky deplored on Saturday in his daily speech, requesting additional sanctions against the country.
At the same time, the fight continues on the front, where the Russian army, more numerous and better equipped, continues in certain sectors a slow advance. The Ministry of Defense of Russia affirmed on Saturday the conquest of two Ukrainian peoples, Stoupotchki and Odrané, located in the Donetsk (East) region, which remains the epicenter of clashes.
More than 300 km away, the Ministry also said on Saturday that its troops had seized the town of Loknia, in the Soumy region (northeast), the Russian border and where Moscow said he wanted to create a damping area to prevent Ukrainian incursions into their territory.
Source: BFM TV
