Russian troops advancing slowly on the eastern front of the war in Ukraine have captured two settlements in Donetsk region as well as one in Ukraine's northern region of Sumy, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

Kyiv. Russia launched 14 ballistic missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine’s capital overnight on March 24. It's one of the biggest combined aerial attacks on the Ukrainian capital of the three-year war, damaging several apartment buildings and injuring 15 people.

The Ukrainian president renewed calls for global pressure on Moscow for a ceasefire after 390 prisoners were returned to Ukraine yesterday, with more to follow over the weekend in the “thousand for a thousand” war swap. The swap took place at the border with Belarus in northern Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official.

Russia and Ukraine have no direct peace talks scheduled, the Kremlin said Thursday, nearly a week after their first face-to-face session since shortly after Moscow’s invasion in 2022 and days after U.

Ukraine pioneered the use of small drones on the battlefield. But in Russia’s Kursk region, Moscow’s fiber-optic cables helped turn the tide.

On Friday, Ukraine and Russia had each handed over 390 soldiers and civilians in the biggest prisoner exchange since Russia launched its full-scale assault in February 2022. Both countries have each agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners, with another exchange expected on Sunday.

Russian armed forces are creating a “security buffer zone” along the border between Russia and Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

As Ukrainian drones strike deep into Russian territory, they are disrupting day-to-day life and reminding Russians that the war is not confined to the trenches.