Ukraine-Russia war latest: Eight injured as Moscow launches missile and drone attacks on Kyiv – UK Times

Ukraine and the US have finished setting up the US-Ukraine reconstruction fund, the core part of the agreement to share profits from new Ukrainian resource projects.

Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said all procedures to set up the fund were completed on Friday.

“The Fund is now officially launched,” she said on X.

Read more about the fund and why it was created here.

The Russian activist and widow of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny said Trump speaking to the Russian president “like they’re equal” is making him more powerful.

Athena Stavrou reports live from Hay Festival:

Earlier on Friday, US president Donald Trump heralded the Ukraine and Russia prisoner swap, before it had been completed.

“A major prisoners swap was just completed between Russia and Ukraine,” he wrote on Friday morning US time.

“It will go into effect shortly. Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted photographs of the 390 released Ukrainian captives, all with shaven heads, celebrating their release and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.

Ukrainian media outlet Espreso TV published a video of the wife of a prisoner crying tears of joy, wrapped in a flag on Kyiv’s Independence Square. She said she had been waiting for her husband’s release since 2022, and had just received the call from Ukrainian authorities confirming the good news.

“We waited, hoped and fought,” said the woman, whose name was given as Victoria.

At least eight people were injured after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early today with drones and missiles, triggering fires, strewing debris in districts throughout the city, the city’s mayor said.

Reuters reported successive waves of drones flying over Kyiv and a series of explosions jolting the city.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two residents had required hospital treatment and that air defence units were in action.

Pictures posted online showed smoke billowing from the top of one block of flats and flames leaping from part of another as emergency crews trained water on it.

An orange-red glow lit up the city as plumes of smoke wafted across the horizon.

Mr Klitschko said fragments from one drone struck the top floor of an apartment building in the Solomynskyi district on the west bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects the city. One apartment building was on fire in the area as was one non-residential building.

Russia released 390 Ukrainian prisoners on Friday including 120 civilians in part of the first stage of a prisoner of war exchange with Ukraine.

Ukraine also returned 390 Russian prisoners, who will undergo medical treatment in Belarus before returning home.

Russia needs to strengthen its position in the global arms market by increasing exports of weapons, country’s president Vladimir Putin said.

In televised remarks, he also said the country’s military complex needs more state support to develop its potential.

“The portfolio of orders for Russian military products is now serious. It is tens of billions of dollars. And it is necessary to actively increase the volume of export deliveries,” Mr Putin said.

He also singled out weapons that utilise Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“The future of the global arms market lies with such technology. Strong competition will unfold here, and is already unfolding, for which we must be prepared,” Mr Putin said.

Former Ukrainian commander and now ambassador to the UK, Valery Zaluzhnyi, said Ukraine should abandon hope of regaining all territory lost to Russia.

“I hope that there are not people in this room who still hope for some kind of miracle or lucky sign that will bring peace to Ukraine, the borders of 1991 or 2022, and that there will be great happiness afterward,” Zaluzhnyi said in a speech published by the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet on Friday.

“My personal opinion is that the enemy still has resources, forces and means to launch strikes on our territory and attempt specific offensive operations.”

Russia occupied the Crimea peninsula in 2014, and its armed forces now control about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said Ukraine will be held responsible for drone attacks on Moscow.

The Russian minister said the surge of Ukrainian drone attacks – some 800 sent against Russian targets over the last three days – was “a direct consequence” of support for Ukraine by European Union countries whose leaders visited Kyiv in recent days.

“We are certain that they will be held accountable for their share of responsibility for these crimes,” Mr Lavrov said, referring to the European countries.

“This is clearly an attempt to disrupt peace talks and undermine progress made in Istanbul following the agreements between the presidents of Russia and the United States… We will continue this work no matter what provocations there may be.”