Biggest drone strike hits Ukraine's second city

At least three people have been killed and another 21 injured in the largest Russian drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv, the mayor has said.

Ihor Terekhov said that overnight Russia launched 48 drones, two missiles and four gliding bombs in an attack he described as "open terror".

It comes after a massive wave of drones and missiles struck across Ukraine on Thursday night. Moscow said the strikes were in response to "terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime", following Ukraine's surprise raids on Russian air bases last Sunday.

Meanwhile, Russian and Ukrainian officials released conflicting accounts about when a prisoner swap agreed at earlier talks will take place.

Some 18 apartment buildings and 13 other homes in Kharkiv were hit overnight during Friday's attack, the city's mayor said. A baby and a 14 year-old girl were among the injured, he added.

Two people were also killed in Russian strikes on Kherson, in southern Ukraine, local authorities said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha urged allies to increase pressure on Moscow and to take "more steps to strengthen Ukraine" in response to Russia's latest attacks.

Six people were killed and 80 injured across Ukraine the previous night, when Russia attacked the country with more than 400 drones and nearly 40 missiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a "massive strike on cities and ordinary life" in "almost all of Ukraine", including capital Kyiv.

Strikes also hit the northern city of Chernihiv, as well as Lutsk and Ternopil in the north-west, with Moscow claiming military sites were targeted.

During the latest round of direct talks in Istanbul earlier this week, the two warring sides agreed to exchange all sick and heavily wounded prisoners of war, those aged under 25, as well as the bodies of 12,000 soldiers.

Moscow's chief negotiator at the meeting, Vladimir Medinsky, claimed on Saturday that Ukraine had "unexpectedly postponed both the acceptance of bodies and the exchange of prisoners of war for an indefinite period".

But Petro Yatsensko, of Ukraine's Coordination for PoWS HQ, said this was "not true" and said the exchange had been rescheduled to occur next week.

A statement from his office added that preparations were under way for the exchange.

Ukraine accused Moscow of playing "dirty games", and alleged that Russia was not sticking to the agreed parameters of the PoW swap.

No specific dates have been announced for the exchanges to take place.

Medinsky also claimed that the bodies of more than one thousands slain Ukrainian soldiers had been taken to an agreed exchange point but that Ukrainian officials never arrived.

A list of 640 prisoners of war had also been handed to Ukraine "in order to begin the exchange", Medinsky wrote on social media.

• Russia and Ukraine fail again to agree ceasefire but commit to prisoner swap

• Ukraine's audacious drone attack sends critical message to Russia - and the West

The barrages over the past two nights came after Ukrainian drone strikes targeted Russian strategic warplanes at four air bases deep inside Russia.

Ukraine's security service SBU said at least 40 Russian aircraft were struck during the so-called "Operation Spider's Web" last Sunday.

Ukraine says it used 117 drones that were first smuggled into Russia, then placed inside wooden cabins mounted on the back of lorries and concealed below remotely operated detachable roofs.

The lorries were then apparently driven to locations near the Russian air bases by drivers who were seemingly unaware of their cargo. The drones were then launched remotely.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that the Ukrainians had given Russian President Vladimir Putin "a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night".

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It currently controls around 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.