In brief
The city of Kyiv is in mourning after a deadly missile strike killed 24 individuals, including children. In a striking juxtaposition, a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine was carried out shortly thereafter, returning 205 Ukrainian soldiers to their homeland. The exchange occurred within the context of a short-lived ceasefire, which has since been overshadowed by renewed Russian assaults on Ukrainian cities.
Russia and Ukraine exchanged 205 prisoners of war on Friday, hours after rescue workers ended their search of a destroyed block of flats in Kyiv in which 24 people were killed, including three girls.
Most of the Ukrainian prisoners had been held since 2022, said President Zelensky.
The swap was part of a short-lived ceasefire ending this week with the launch of massive Russian strikes across Ukraine, including a missile attack that reduced 18 flats to rubble. Among the victims was 12-year-old Lyubava Yakovleva, whose father was killed during the war.
Meanwhile, Russian officials said four people, including a child, were killed when Ukrainian drones hit the city of Ryazan, south-east of Moscow.
Images on social media showed damage to two blocks of flats, which Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said had been damaged by debris.
Twenty-eight people were hurt in the attack. Ukraine's drone commander said his forces had hit Ryazan's oil refinery - one of the biggest in Russia.
Rescue services in the Darnytskyi district of south-east Kyiv completed their search of the rubble of a devastated nine-storey apartment block on Friday. Throughout the 28-hour operation residents and soldiers looked on, waiting for news of missing relatives.
Kyiv was marking a day of mourning on Friday for the 24 victims of the strike.
The three girls who died were 12, 15 and 15. Lyubava Yakovleva's elder sister was initially declared missing in the rubble, and it was later reported that she too had been killed. The girls' school said on Facebook that the scariest face of war is the children's lives it takes.
President Zelensky laid flowers at the site of Thursday's attack in Kyiv, which he claimed was carried out by a Russian X-101 cruise missile.
Meanwhile, the deal to exchange prisoners was brokered by the US and United Arab Emirates, with Russia's defence ministry stating that 205 Russians were taken to Belarus for medical and psychological support.
The recent escalations in hostilities come against a backdrop of a failed truce, raising concerns about the future of peace negotiations between the two nations.
