KIEV

A woman carries her dog as she walks on a street with pieces of broken glass at the site of a residential building that was damaged after a Russian attack in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, May 24, 2025.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that new international sanctions were needed to force Russia to agree a ceasefire, after Russian drone and missile strikes on Kiev overnight injured 15 people.

“Only additional sanctions targeting key sectors of the Russian economy will force Moscow to cease fire,” he said on X, adding that “the cause of prolonging the war lies in Moscow”.

At least 15 were wounded in a drone and missile attack on Kiev Saturday, city authorities said, just as Russia and Ukraine were in the middle of a major prisoner swap.

The head of Kiev’s civil and military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, reported fires and fallen debris in several parts of the Ukrainian capital, after AFP journalists heard explosions overnight.

At least eight people were wounded in the attack, two of whom were hospitalised, according to the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.

“The capital and the region are again under massive enemy attack. Air defense systems are continuously operating in Kiev and its suburbs,” he said on Telegram.

The Russian military meanwhile said Ukraine had targeted it with 788 drones and missiles since Tuesday, 776 of which had been shot down.

The attack on Kiev comes hours after Russia and Ukraine completed the first stage of a prisoner exchange agreed at talks last week in Istanbul which, if completed, would be the biggest swap since the start of the conflict.

Both sides received 390 people in the first stage and are expected to exchange 1,000 each in total.

Russia has signalled it will send Ukraine its terms for a peace settlement after the swap, which is set to be staggered over three days — without saying what those terms would be.

‘First stage’

The two enemies have held regular prisoner swaps since Russia launched its 2022 offensive — but none have been on this scale.

An AFP reporter saw some of the formerly captive Ukrainian soldiers arrive at a hospital in the northern Chernigiv region, emaciated but smiling and waving to crowds waiting outside.

After they stepped off the bus, tearful relatives rushed to embrace the soldiers while others held pictures of their loved ones, hoping to find out if they had been seen in captivity.

Many of the soldiers were draped in bright yellow and blue Ukrainian flags.

“The first stage of the ‘1,000-for-1,000’ exchange agreement has been carried out,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X.

“Today — 390 people. On Saturday and Sunday, we expect the exchange to continue.”

Russia said it had received 270 Russian troops and 120 civilians, including some from parts of its Kursk region captured and held by Kiev for months.

The two sides have not yet revealed the identities of those exchanged.

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier congratulated the two countries for the swap.

“This could lead to something big???” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s efforts to broker a ceasefire in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II have so far been unsuccessful, despite his pledge to rapidly end the fighting.

One of the soldiers formerly held captive, 58-year-old Viktor Syvak, told AFP he was delighted to be back.

Captured in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, he had been held for 37 months and 12 days.

“It’s very vivid. I didn’t expect such a welcome. It’s impossible to describe. I can’t put it into words. It’s very joyful,” he said.

Diplomatic push

Several Ukrainians told AFP they were anxiously waiting to see if their relatives had been included in the swap.

“We have been looking for our son for two years,” said Liudmyla Parkhomenko, a mother of a Ukrainian soldier who went missing during combat in the city of Bakhmut.

“Today I would like the Lord to send us good news… We feel in our hearts that he’s alive,” she added.

After 39 months of fighting, thousands of POWs are held in both countries.

Russia is believed to have the larger share, with the number of Ukrainian captives held by Moscow estimated to be between 8,000 and 10,000.

With Kiev not knowing the fate of thousands, each exchange brings surprises, a senior official told AFP.

“Almost every exchange includes people no one had knowledge about,” he said.

“Sometimes they return people who were on the lists of missing persons or were considered dead.”

Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have stepped up a gear in recent weeks, but the Kremlin has shown no sign it has walked back its maximalist demands for ending the fighting.

Trump has been seeking to broker an end to the fighting since taking office in January, but has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin.

Moscow has defied European pressure for a full and unconditional truce in Ukraine, pressing on with its three-year offensive, which has left tens of thousands dead.

US President Donald Trump on Friday announced a “major” prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.

“A major prisoners swap was just completed between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

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“Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???” he said, without providing further details.

His announcement follows Moscow and Kyiv agreeing during talks in Istanbul this month to exchange 1,000 prisoners each.

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The warring countries have held many rounds of swaps since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In such an exchange this month, the two sides each released 205 captured soldiers.

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Separately, the Kremlin said this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump discussed a bilateral prisoner swap with the United States.

The US president’s push for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine has been rebuffed by Putin.

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Moscow’s work on a memorandum concerning the Ukraine crisis is at an advanced stage, and a second round of talks with Kyiv is expected, Lavrov said.

“Yes, we are all for talks. Yes, there will be a second round.

“They (the Ukrainian authorities) have confirmed it. This is a positive development in itself,” Lavrov said at a high-level conference on historical southern Russian lands.

He confirmed that preparations are ongoing.

“Work (on a memorandum) is underway.

“I don’t know about Ukraine, but our work has reached an advanced stage, and we will hand the memorandum over to the Ukrainians in any case,” he said.

Lavrov cast doubt on Friday on the Vatican as a potential place for peace talks with Ukraine.

Italy, the pope and the United States had voiced hope the city-state could host negotiations.

The Kremlin said no decision had been taken yet on a location for the next round of talks with Ukraine to end more than three years of conflict, after Moscow and Kyiv met for talks in Istanbul last week.

“It would be a bit inelegant for Orthodox countries to discuss, on Catholic ground, issues related to eliminating root causes (of the conflict),” Lavrov said, accusing Kyiv of “destroying” the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

He added: “For the Vatican itself it would not be very comfortable to, in these circumstances, host delegations from Orthodox countries.”

Moscow has had strained relations with the Vatican for centuries.

Italy has said Pope Leo XIV was ready to host the peace talks after US leader Donald Trump suggested the Vatican as a location.

The Kremlin said on Friday that the location of a venue “cannot be taken by one side”.

“We need the agreement of both sides,” it stressed.

“At the moment there is no decision or agreements on the next negotiation venue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“This decision will be taken when the time is ripe,” he added.

Russia’s role in Ukraine since its 2014 annexation of Crimea has led to Ukrainian believers turning away from Russia’s Moscow patriarchy.

Kyiv created its own Orthodox church, independent from Moscow, in 2018 and banned the Russian-backed branch of the Orthodox church after Russia’s full-scale 2022 offensive.

Russia’s Orthodox Church was created after the 1054 East-West Schism, and Moscow has since had frosty relations with the Vatican.

This continued during the anti-religion Soviet period. No pope has ever visited Russia.