CNN
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The Ukrainian capital, Kiyyv, was hit by massive Russian drones and missiles overnight on Saturday, just hours after Russia and Ukraine began a massive prisoner exchange.
At least 15 people were injured in multiple districts in the city, according to Ukrainian national police.
City Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack caused a fire and left the wreckage scattered throughout the city. Multiple residential buildings were damaged, officials said.
A video shared by Reuters news agency could be heard as an explosion and a huge siren rings across the capital. Several fires were seen against the night skyline.
The nighttime attack came after Russia and Ukraine completed the first phase of what is expected to be the largest prisoner exchange since the start of the war.
The swap begins on Friday and continues on Saturday and Sunday, with Kyiv and Moscow expecting to trade 2,000 people.
It was the only significant result of the meeting between Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul last week, and the first time I had met in person shortly after Russia’s full-scale unprovoked Ukrainian invasion in February 2022.
Kiev city junta said Shelfragment damaged an apartment building in the Dniprovsky district on Saturday.
Authorities also said a fire broke out on the fourth floor of an apartment in the high-rise area of the city’s northern suburbs, destroying many windows, the city administration said.
The fallen debris was also reported at shopping centres in the same area, the city administration said, and the drone fragments hit the ground in many other widely separated areas.
The Ukrainian air force on Saturday said Russia launched 14 ballistic missiles and 250 attack drones in the country, with the “main focus” being the capital. Air defense said it had fired down six of these missiles and 245 drones, with projectiles also colliding with Dnipro, Odesa, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“It was a difficult night for all Ukraine,” President Volodimia Zelensky said on Telegram.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andri Sibikha said the country’s air defenses had worked “non-stop” to repel Russia’s air attacks overnight.
“It’s been a week since the Istanbul meeting, and Russia has not yet sent a “memorandum of peace.” Instead, Russia will send deadly drones and missiles to civilians,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed it had destroyed 94 Ukrainian UAVs on Russian territory, mainly in the Belgorod and Bryansk regions. Some UAVs were shot down on Kursk, Lipetsk, Voronezh and Tula regions.
The Istanbul Conference was originally proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to the ultimate in the ceasefire or lineage given to Moscow by Kiev’s European allies.
Ukraine and its allies demanded that Russia agree to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Istanbul, but that did not happen.
Neither Zelensky nor Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the talks in Istanbul.
This story has been updated.
