KYIV, Ukraine — At least 13 people were killed across Ukraine after Russia launched a massive overnight aerial assault targeting the capital Kyiv and multiple other regions, marking one of the most intense bombardments in recent months even as the two countries carried out a large-scale prisoner exchange.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia fired 14 ballistic missiles and deployed 250 attack drones across the country.
While Ukrainian air defenses reportedly intercepted six of the missiles and 245 drones, several projectiles breached defenses, striking the capital and five other regions: Dnipro, Odesa, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia.
“It was a difficult night for all of Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a message on Telegram, expressing condolences to families of the victims and the injured.
In Kyiv, at least 18 people were injured after explosions rocked the city overnight into Saturday, May 24, 2025.
Air raid sirens sounded across the capital, where multiple fires lit up the skyline.
Ukrainian parliament member Kira Rudik described the bombardment as “terrifying,” telling CNN that she spent the night sheltering “under the stairs.”
“It felt honestly like armageddon,” Rudik said. “The explosions were everywhere.”
Regional officials confirmed further casualties: four killed in the eastern Donetsk region, five in the southern Kherson and Odesa regions, and four in the northern Kharkiv region.
The strikes came just hours after the second phase of a major prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.
Over 600 servicemen were released on Saturday, May 24, 2025, following the exchange, which began Friday with the release of nearly 800 individuals—marking the largest such exchange since the war began in February 2022.
Footage shared by Ukraine’s Coordination Center for the Treatment of Prisoners of War showed emotional scenes of returning servicemen, many with shaved heads and draped in Ukrainian flags, embracing one another and speaking with loved ones over the phone.
The agreement to exchange 1,000 prisoners on each side was the sole outcome of last week’s direct negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Istanbul, the first face-to-face talks between the two nations since the early months of the full-scale invasion.
Despite the positive step, officials in Kyiv expressed deep frustration over the renewed intensity of Russian strikes.
“One week has passed since the Istanbul meeting, and Russia has yet to send its ‘peace memorandum,’” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
“Instead, Russia sends deadly drones and missiles at civilians.”
Sybiha noted that Ukraine’s air defense systems had worked “non-stop” throughout the night to repel the attacks, describing the strikes as part of a broader pattern of Russia undermining diplomatic progress with acts of aggression.
The Kremlin has not yet publicly commented on the attack or the ongoing prisoner exchange.
