Ukraine's capital declared a day of mourning Friday after a Russian missile strike killed 24 people in a Kyiv apartment building, including three girls aged 12, 15, and 17. The attack was the deadliest on the city in months. Hours later, Moscow and Kyiv exchanged 205 prisoners of war each, a rare moment of cooperation brokered by US President Donald Trump.
The youngest victim, 12-year-old Liubava Yakovleva, had already lost her father to the war. Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko confirmed the family's dual tragedy on social media. "Liubava Yakovleva's father was killed fighting the Russian invasion," she wrote. The other two girls killed were 15 and 17.
Rescue workers pulled survivors from the rubble for over 28 hours. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that 30 people were saved. Twenty-four remained hospitalized as of Friday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky walked through the debris-strewn courtyard where the missile struck. "Here, Russia took the lives of 24 people, including three children," he said. He called the attack Moscow's "brutal terror."
The strike shattered any remaining calm in the capital. It also landed as diplomatic channels for ending the war remained frozen. Kyiv's Western allies accused Russia of mocking peace efforts.
Moscow has shown no willingness to abandon its territorial demands in eastern and southern Ukraine. To the north, the mood was starkly different. AFP reporters witnessed the released Ukrainian soldiers arriving with shaven heads, draped in national flags.
They cheered. They cried. They embraced one another.
Many had been held since 2022, including defenders of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which Russian forces briefly seized at the invasion's start. Zelensky described the release as the "first stage of the 1,000 for 1,000 exchange" that Trump had previously announced. Moscow confirmed its 205 released soldiers were taken to Belarus for what it called "psychological and medical assistance." The prisoner swaps remain one of the few areas where the two warring governments still cooperate, more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The exchange did not pause the violence. Overnight, Ukrainian drones struck the Russian city of Ryazan, south-west of Moscow. Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said 99 drones targeted the region.
An apartment block was hit. Four people died, including a child. "The number of dead, unfortunately, rose to four people, including a child," Malkov said on social media. Unverified videos showed blackened floors of a high-rise and smoke plumes rising over the city of roughly 500,000.
Fresh Russian attacks on Friday killed one person in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region. In the northern Chernigiv region, a Russian missile set a house ablaze. Regional head Vyacheslav Chaus said a 45-year-old woman and her 13-year-old daughter were wounded and hospitalized.
The Kyiv strike was the deadliest on the capital in months. It landed at a moment when any path to a negotiated settlement appears more distant than ever. Russia insists Ukraine must cede four regions it claimed to annex in 2022.
Ukraine refuses. Here is what the data shows. The United Nations has verified over 12,300 civilian deaths in Ukraine since February 2022, though the actual toll is believed to be far higher.
Children remain among the most vulnerable. The killing of three girls in one strike underscores the war's indiscriminate cost, a pattern documented repeatedly by international observers. The headline is dramatic.
Each civilian death recorded in this war has a name, an age, and a family left to grieve. Liubava Yakovleva was 12. She had already buried her father.
Her story is not an abstraction. The prisoner exchange, while a diplomatic bright spot, reveals the grinding nature of the conflict. Their release was not a breakthrough.
It was a transaction. The 1,000-for-1,000 framework Trump brokered is ambitious, but Friday's swap of 410 total soldiers represents only the first installment. Hundreds more families on both sides are still waiting.
The contrast between the mourning in Kyiv and the reunions in the north captures the war's split-screen reality. In one frame, emergency crews dig through concrete for bodies. In another, soldiers weep into mobile phones, hearing a spouse's voice for the first time in years.
Both images are true. Both happened on the same day. The Ryazan strike adds another layer.
Deadly Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russian territory remain rare, especially near Moscow. The drone barrage that killed four people, including a child, will likely harden Russian public support for the war. The Kremlin has long framed the conflict as a defensive operation against Western-backed aggression.
Civilian deaths on Russian soil reinforce that narrative. Before you panic, read the methodology. Casualty figures in active war zones are notoriously difficult to verify independently.
The Kyiv death toll of 24 comes from Ukrainian officials. Both sides have incentives to inflate enemy casualties and minimize their own. Independent confirmation from neutral parties is limited.
AFP reporters were on the ground in Kyiv and at the POW release site, lending credibility to those accounts. The Ryazan strike, however, relies primarily on Russian government statements and unverified social media footage. Neither side is winning decisively.
Both are absorbing and inflicting civilian casualties. The diplomatic track, centered on Trump's 1,000-for-1,000 proposal, is moving in slow motion while the killing continues at full speed. For families of the estimated thousands of POWs still held, each exchange is a lifeline.
For civilians in Kyiv, Ryazan, Zaporizhzhia, and Chernigiv, each night brings the risk of a missile or drone. - Russia and Ukraine each released 205 prisoners of war in the first stage of a US-brokered 1,000-for-1,000 exchange. - Ukrainian drone strikes on Ryazan, Russia, killed four people, including a child, in a rare deadly attack near Moscow. - The violence continued elsewhere, with Russian strikes killing one in Zaporizhzhia and wounding a mother and daughter in Chernigiv. What comes next is uncertain. The second stage of the 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner exchange has no public timeline.
Diplomatic talks remain stalled. Russia's territorial demands are unchanged. Ukraine's Western backers are watching for any shift in Moscow's posture, but Friday's strike on Kyiv suggests none is imminent.
The war grinds on. More families will bury their dead. More soldiers will wait for a phone call home.
Key Takeaways
— A Russian missile killed 24 civilians in Kyiv, including three girls, making it the deadliest attack on the capital in months.
— Russia and Ukraine each released 205 prisoners of war in the first stage of a US-brokered 1,000-for-1,000 exchange.
— Ukrainian drone strikes on Ryazan, Russia, killed four people, including a child, in a rare deadly attack near Moscow.
— The violence continued elsewhere, with Russian strikes killing one in Zaporizhzhia and wounding a mother and daughter in Chernigiv.
Source: AFP
