Star Metro - 12 killed as Russia pummels Ukraine with biggest ever drone attack

Ukraine's emergency services described a night of "terror" as Russia launched a second straight night of massive air strikes, including on the capital Kyiv.

The attacks came even as the two countries completed their biggest prisoner swap since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, with 1,000 captured soldiers and civilian prisoners exchanged by each side.

The death toll from the latest Russian strikes included two children, aged eight and 12, and a 17-year-old, killed in the northwestern region of Zhytomyr, officials said.

Their school named the dead children as Roman, Tamara and Stanislav in a post on Facebook, saying: "Their memory will always be with us. We will never forgive".

"Without truly strong pressure on the Russian leadership, this brutality cannot be stopped," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.

"The silence of America, the silence of others around the world only encourages Putin," he said, adding: "Sanctions will certainly help."

The European Union's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, called for "the strongest international pressure on Russia to stop this war".

"Last night's attacks again show Russia bent on more suffering and the annihilation of Ukraine. Devastating to see children among innocent victims harmed and killed," she said on social media.

The renewed strikes came after Russia launched 14 ballistic missiles and 250 drones overnight Friday to Saturday, which wounded 15, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine's military said on Sunday it had shot down a total of 45 Russian missiles and 266 attack drones overnight.

Air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said a total of 298 drones were launched, adding that this was "the highest number ever".

Four people were also reported dead in Ukraine's western Khmelnytskyi region, four in the Kyiv region, and one in Mykolaiv in the south.

Emergency services said 16 people were also injured in the Kyiv region, including three children, in the "massive night attack".

"We saw the whole street was on fire," a 65-year-old retired woman, Tetiana Iankovska, told AFP in Markhalivka village just southwest of Kyiv.

Another retiree who survived the strikes, Oleskandr, 64, said he had no faith in talks around a ceasefire.

"We don't need talks, but weapons, a lot of weapons to stop them (the Russians). Because Russia understands only force, nothing else," he said.

Russia meanwhile said its strikes were aimed at Ukraine's "military-industrial complex" and said it had brought down 110 Ukrainian drones.

Flights at Moscow airports were disrupted because of temporary closures due to Ukrainian drone activity but no injuries were reported, officials said.

- Major prisoner exchange -

Russia also said Sunday it had exchanged another 303 Ukrainian prisoners of war for the same number of Russian soldiers held by Kyiv -- the last phase of the prisoner swap agreed during talks between the two sides in Istanbul on May 16.

Russia and Ukraine had over three days "carried out the exchange of 1,000 people for 1,000 people", the defence ministry said.

Zelensky confirmed the swap was complete.

Both sides received 390 people in the first stage on Friday and 307 in the second stage on Saturday.

- Diplomatic push -

US President Donald Trump on Friday 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.

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.

One of the soldiers formerly held captive, 58-year-old Viktor Syvak, told AFP it was hard to express his emotional homecoming.

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

"It's impossible to describe. I can't put it into words. It's very joyful," he said.

N.Fournier--SMC