Russia and Ukraine on Sunday swapped hundreds of prisoners just hours after Moscow launched one of the largest aerial assaults of the more than three-year war between the two countries.
The prisoner swap was the third and final part of a major exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said both sides exchanged more than 300 soldiers. This followed the release of 307 combatants and civilians each on Saturday, and 390 on Friday — the largest total swap of the war so far.
“303 Ukrainian defenders are home,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, confirming the exchange.
RUSSIA LAUNCHES LARGEST AERIAL ATTACK OF UKRAINE WAR, KILLING AT LEAST 12
He said the troops returning to Ukraine were members of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the State Border Guard Service, and the State Special Transport Service.
In talks held earlier this month in Istanbul — the first face-to-face meeting between the warring sides in recent peace talks — Kyiv and Moscow agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners of war and civilian detainees each. The exchange has been the only tangible outcome from the talks.
The exchange came just hours after Russia launched a massive drone-and-missile attack targeting the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other regions, killing at least 12 people – including three children – and injuring dozens more.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that air defense forces were working in the capital against enemy drones. Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv military administration, said Kharkiv and its suburbs were also under attack by drones.
MAJOR RUSSIA-UKRAINE PRISONER SWAP IS UNDERWAY, OFFICIAL SAYS
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, told The Associated Press that Russia used a total of 69 missiles of various types and 298 drones – the largest single aerial attack of the war.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defenses shot down 110 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The latest round of violence came as President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday he was “not happy” with Russia’s large-scale strike against Ukraine.
Speaking at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey, the president accused Putin of “killing a lot of people” in the attack.
RUSSIA BOMBARDS UKRAINE WITH DRONES HOURS AFTER TRUMP ANNOUNCES TALKS WITH PUTIN
“I’m not happy with what Putin is doing,” Trump said. “He’s killing a lot of people, and I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin.”
Later expanding on his comments in a Truth Social Post, Trump said Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY!”
“I’ve always said that [Putin] wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!” the social media post read. But the president also criticized Zelenskyy.
“Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop,” Trump wrote, concluding: “This is a War that would never have started if I were President. This is Zelenskyy’s, Putin’s, and Biden’s War, not ‘Trump’s,’ I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires, that have been started through Gross Incompetence and Hatred.”
