1 hour ago Ukraine and Russia swap 800 prisoners in biggest exchange of war yet

President Zelenskyy said the first phase brought home 390 Ukrainians

Events

2 h. ago Emergency crews search Kyiv building after Russia strike injures 15

Watch as emergency workers search a building damaged by drone debris after Moscow launched its largest missile and drone attack to date on Kyiv.

Events

8 h. ago Ukraine war briefing: Multiple injuries as Russia attacks Kyiv with drones and missiles

Explosions heard across capital and fires ignited while Russia and Ukraine begin largest prisoner swap of war. What we know on day 1,186See all our Ukraine war coverage Kyiv came under heavy drone and missile attack by Russian forces overnight into Saturday, triggering fires and injuring at least eight people, the Ukrainian capital’s mayor said. Explosions and machine-gun fire were heard throughout the city and many Kyiv residents took shelter in underground subway stations. Debris fell in at least four districts, said the Kyiv military administration, with six people requiring medical care. 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.Russia and Ukraine on Friday began a major, complicated exchange of military prisoners of war and civilians, write Peter Beaumont and Pjotr Sauer. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said the first phase brought home 390 Ukrainians,...

Events

18 h. ago Hundreds of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians released in biggest prisoner swap of war

Russia and Ukraine had each agreed after two hours of peace talks in Istanbul last week to swap 1,000 prisoners

Events

19 h. ago Ukraine and Russia exchange 800 PoWs in largest prisoner swap of war so far

Russian foreign minister continues to question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as first phase of ‘1,000 for 1,000’ deal takes placesUkraine and Russia have begun the largest prisoner exchange of the three-year war, with almost 800 captives returned on both sides in a process expected to last several days.Confirming the first phase of the exchange had taken place, the Ukrainian president, Volodmyr Zelenskyy, said Ukraine had returned 390 people to Russia and that the process would continue with further groups on Saturday and Sunday. Continue reading...

Events

19 h. ago Hundreds of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers released in biggest prisoner swap of war

Russia and Ukraine had each agreed after two hours of peace talks in Istanbul last week to swap 1,000 prisoners

Events

20 h. ago In Ukraine, I saw Trump’s ‘peace deal’ wouldn’t just trade away land – but lives, memories and homes | Timothy Garton Ash

Ukrainians I met in Kyiv and Lviv were grimly realistic about the end of the war. We should follow their exampleThe next time a breathless news anchor talks about the prospect of a war-ending “deal”, with Ukraine “ceding land for peace”, I want to sit them down with Adeline. In Lviv last week, Adeline showed me on her phone map her lost home in Russian-occupied Nova Kakhovka, just across the Dnipro River from the Ukrainian-liberated territory around Kherson. Look, she said, with tears welling up in her eyes, here on this satellite snapshot you can see the ecological disaster that followed Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam in 2023. And here’s the place where she dreamed of setting up a small art gallery. “Why should I give up on my home?” she cried. Why indeed.The territory occupied by Russia is the size of Portugal and Slovenia combined. It’s difficult to get accurate figures, but perhaps some 5 million people live there, while at least another 2 million refugees from those t...

Politics

23 h. ago Ukrainian official says major prisoner swap with Russia is underway

A senior Ukrainian officials says an exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine from their more than three-year war is underway

Events

37 h. ago G7 ministers threaten more sanctions against Russia over Ukraine war

Summit makes little progress on how to respond to Donald Trump’s trade war

Politics

44 h. ago ‘Every day there is shelling’: Ukrainian border town torn between hope and despair

Mayor of Bilopillya, where nine people were killed in strike on bus, says Russia has shown it does not care about talksEven before the Russian strike on a shuttle bus travelling from his frontline town at the weekend, the mayor of Bilopillya, Yuri Zarko, was very sceptical that Vladimir Putin’s agreement to direct Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul would lead to peace.The strike, which killed nine people including five over 60, only confirmed his conviction that talks to end the war were going nowhere and Ukraine had a challenging time ahead. Continue reading...

Politics

47 h. ago House passes Trump’s ‘big beautiful’ tax and spending bill after months of wrangling – US politics live

Sweeping legislation will now be sent to the SenateThe Kremlin said on Thursday that a report in the Wall Street Journal which said US president Donald Trump had told European leaders that President Vladimir Putin did not want to end the war in Ukraine contrasted with its own knowledge.The Journal said Trump had briefed European leaders after talking to Putin by phone on Monday and said Putin wanted to keep fighting in Ukraine because he thought he was winning.With a narrow 220-212 majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson could not afford to lose more than a handful of votes from his side.Republicans on the party’s right flank had pushed for deeper spending cuts to lessen the budget impact, but they met resistance from centrists who worried they would fall too heavily on the 71 million low-income Americans enrolled in the Medicaid health program. Continue reading...

Politics

48 h. ago UK government urged to introduce GCSE in Ukrainian for child refugees

Children’s commissioner joins Kyiv in asking DfE to create new qualification to cope with ‘immense upheaval’ of fleeing warThe children’s commissioner has joined Kyiv in lobbying the UK government to introduce a new GCSE in Ukrainian to help child refugees cope with the “immense upheaval” of fleeing war in their country.In December, the Guardian revealed that Ukraine was “deeply concerned” to discover many Ukrainian teenagers are being pressed into learning Russian in British schools because no GSCE in Ukrainian is available. Continue reading...

Politics

48 h. ago What would Russia’s peace deal demands really mean for Ukraine? – visualised

Trump on Monday again failed to persuade Putin to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine as a first step toward a peace deal. But what might a deal even look like, and what would it mean for the Ukrainian people?One of the few explicit peace proposals is a US outline reportedly seen by Reuters last month. It asks Ukraine to accept de jure recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of its occupation of large parts of several oblasts in the country’s east. On Monday, Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Russia is demanding Ukrainian troops abandon five oblasts as a precondition not for peace, but for a ceasefire and the opening of negotiations.Before the war, those oblasts were home to about 11 million Ukrainians. To put that into context, we visualised some broadly comparable populated areas in three European countries and one US state, in each case starting from the north-east corner. The shaded areas represent populations of about 11 million French, British, Italian ...

Economics

64 h. ago Finland ‘preparing for the worst’ as Russia expands military presence near border

Head of strategy of Finnish defence forces says they are monitoring Moscow’s manoeuvring ‘very closely’Finland has said it expects Russia to further build up troops along their shared border when the war in Ukraine ends, after reports that Moscow had strengthened its military bases near the Nato frontier.Maj Gen Sami Nurmi, the head of strategy of the Finnish defence forces, said the military is following Moscow’s manoeuvring “very closely” and that it was their job, as part of the Nato alliance, to “prepare for the worst”. Continue reading...

Events

65 h. ago The Guardian view on Russia sanctions: a brittle economy is Putin’s weakness | Editorial

Ukraine’s allies must dial up sanctions to expose the fragility of the Kremlin’s strategy for perpetual warDonald Trump’s pledge to end the war in Ukraine on the first day of his second term as US president was a sign of his unsuitability as a peace broker. A clearer sign was his apparent sympathy with Vladimir Putin. Mr Trump’s tone regarding the Russian president has cooled somewhat on the discovery that the conflict cannot be frozen by White House diktat. There are hints of recognition that the peace process is failing because the Kremlin is cynically playing for time. Sadly, any such insight hasn’t evolved into outrage at the criminal aggression that started the war in the first place.Accounts of a telephone call between the two leaders earlier this week indicate no increase in American pressure on Russia. Mr Trump’s impatience with the whole issue seems likelier to result in him walking away. Mr Putin relishes that prospect.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this ar...

Politics

68 h. ago Europa League final fever builds in Bilbao before Tottenham v Manchester United – live

All the latest news before the final, 8pm BST kick-offJonathan Wilson: why this game matters | Email BarryRight, time to play a searching 40-yard crossfield pass to Will Unwin, who’ll talk you through the rest of the morning. Bye.Elsewhere, Nick Ames has been in Kyiv reporting on how amputee football is helping Ukraine’s war-wounded.“It’s about emotional gain, helping them rediscover this will to live. In some cases they’re now doing something they weren’t able to before their injuries. The key thing is that we don’t kick anyone out of a team. If you want to play, come to training and let’s do it. Everyone can try, we’ll always encourage each other.” Continue reading...

Sport

2 d. ago Russia’s new sanctions explained: Ukraine’s allies target Moscow as peace talks stall

Kyiv’s European allies have slapped new sanctions on Moscow, a day after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce a breakthrough on ending the 3-year-old war in Ukraine

Events

3 d. ago UK government announces 100 new sanctions on Russia days after huge aerial bombardment

Russia carried out the biggest drone onslaught of the war so far on Ukraine last weekend

Politics

3 d. ago Ukraine war has reignited ‘cold war strategies’, says John le Carré’s son

Nick Harkaway sees parallels with postwar period as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold comes to the West End Russia’s war in Ukraine has reignited “cold war strategies”, according to the son of John le Carré, who announced that an adaptation of his father’s classic novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is coming to the West End for the first time.Nick Harkaway, who published Karla’s Choice last year, a sequel to the 1963 thriller, said the current geopolitical situation had echoes of the charged postwar period. Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago Ukraine war briefing: Pope opens Vatican door to peace talks, says Meloni

Zelenskyy says Putin ‘trying to buy time’ after phone call with Trump; EU lays on further sanctions and more coming up. What we know on day 1,183Pope Leo confirmed to Giorgia Meloni his willingness to host in the Vatican the next round of negotiations to try to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Italian prime minister said on Tuesday. “Finding in the Holy Father confirmation of the readiness to host the next talks between the parties in the Vatican, the prime minister expressed deep gratitude to Pope Leo XIV for his unceasing commitment to peace,” said a statement from Meloni. Leo, elected two weeks ago, said on 14 May that the Vatican could act as a mediator in global conflicts, without specifically mentioning Russia’s war against Ukraine.Separately the Italian prime minister said she had talks with other European leaders and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, over next steps. “It was agreed to maintain close coordination between the partners with a view to a ne...

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