Here is where things stand on Sunday, May 25:
Fighting
- At least four people were killed and 16 others injured, including three children, after Russian forces hit Kyiv and surrounding areas in a “massive night attack”. The strikes also damaged dwellings and other buildings, officials said.
- At least four people were reported dead and five others wounded in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region, according to Sergiy Tyurin, the deputy head of the regional military administration.
- A Russian attack killed three children in Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region as Moscow unleashed massive overnight air attacks across the country, emergency services said. The victims were aged eight, 12 and 17, emergency services said, adding 10 other people were wounded.
- A man was also killed when a residential building was hit by a drone in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, the emergency services said.
- At least three people were injured in northeastern Ukraine, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said, as Russian drones hit three city districts. Blasts shattered windows in high-rise apartment blocks.
- Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 12 drones flying towards the Russian capital had been intercepted. Restrictions were imposed on at least four airports, including the main hub Sheremetyevo, the Russian civilian aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, said.
- The Russian military said on Saturday that Ukraine had targeted it with at least 788 drones and missiles since Tuesday.
- The Russian Ministry of Defence announced that its troops advancing slowly on the eastern front have captured two settlements in the Donetsk region as well as one in Ukraine’s northern region of Sumy.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s attacks indicated Moscow was “prolonging the war” and repeated his call for ramped-up sanctions.
- The Russian Defence Ministry announced that it released an additional 307 Ukrainian prisoners of war in exchange for as many Russian servicemen, who are being cared for in Belarus before their return to Russia.
- Russia announced that it would send Ukraine its terms for a peace settlement once a “1,000-for-1,000” prisoner swap between the two was complete, without saying what those terms would be. At least two prisoner exchanges have been carried out between the two countries on Friday and Saturday.
- Ukraine announced that it had opened inquiries into the alleged executions of 268 Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian troops since their invasion in February 2022. Ukraine’s prosecutor general said it had opened 75 criminal proceedings into the 268 alleged killings.