Russia pummelled Kyiv with the largest drone attack of the war, injuring at least 23 people and damaging buildings across the capital only hours after US President Donald Trump spoke with Russia's Vladimir Putin, officials said yesterday.

Ukraine’s army chief yesterday ordered defensive lines to be built more quickly in the northeastern Sumy region, as Russian forces gained ground towards the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region.

Waves of Russian drones and missiles in and around Kyiv overnight killed 10 people including one child, lit up the night sky with fires in residential areas and damaged the entrance to a metro station bomb shelter, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.

Putin and Trump held a call for the fifth time since the Republican took office

Ukraine and Russia conducted another POW swap -- the fourth one in a week -- the warring sides said yesterday, under agreements reached in Istanbul earlier this month.

Russia launched one of its largest air strikes on Kyiv in over three years of war and struck a maternity ward in the southern city of Odesa in attacks that killed at least three people, officials said yesterday.

The overnight strikes followed Russia's biggest drone assault of the war on Ukraine on Monday and were part of intensified bombardments in what Moscow says is retaliation for attacks by Ukrainian forces on Russia

Russia attacked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv at night with drones, missiles and guided bombs, killing at least three people and injuring 22, including a one-and-a-half-month-old baby, said the city mayor Ihor Terekhov.

Moscow said yesterday that a Ukrainian attack on a bridge that links the annexed Crimean peninsula to Russia caused “no damage.”

Ukraine ordered the evacuation of 11 more villages in its Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday amid fears Moscow was gearing up for a fresh ground assault.

A massive Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv yesterday wounded at least 15 people, even as Russia and Ukraine continued the biggest prisoner swap since the start of Moscow’s invasion.

Both sides said they had each released 270 soldiers and 120 civilians so far, with more due to be released on Saturday and Sunday

US President Donald Trump said yesterday that a major prisoner swap was just completed between Russia and Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump yesterday said that Russia and Ukraine “will immediately start negotiations” toward a ceasefire and an end to their three-year-old war, speaking after he held a call with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine’s air force said yesterday it lost another US-made F-16 fighter jet, a significant blow as the aircraft have provided precious help to Ukrainian forces fighting Russia’s invasion.

Russia said on Friday that the first direct talks with Ukraine in more than three years had yielded a deal to swap 1,000 prisoners of war each soon and to resume talks after each side had set out its vision for a future ceasefire

Russian President Vladimir Putin's order for a three-day truce with Ukraine took effect Thursday, a move the Kremlin said would test Kyiv's readiness for peace but that Ukraine has slammed as a farce

Russian airports restricted traffic after Ukraine launched more than 100 drones overnight, including in Moscow just days before its World War II victory parade, officials said Tuesday

Ukrainian attacks killed three people in the Russian border region of Kursk yesterday, the regional governor said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed a three-day truce ordered by Russian leader Vladimir Putin as theatrics but said Kyiv was ready for a full ceasefire.