Ukraine War | Russia and Ukraine continue drone attacks

Berlin. According to Kyiv, Russia launched the largest drone attack on Ukraine since the war began last night. The Ukrainian Air Force reportedly deployed 479 Shahed combat drones and their dummies, as well as several missiles.

Russia's Defense Minister said that, among other things, a military airfield in the Rivne region had been attacked and called the attack "one of the retaliatory strikes" to the Ukrainian attack on Russia's strategic bomber fleet in early June.

Ukraine said it struck an electronics factory in the Russian republic of Chuvashia on Monday, which is supposed to produce antennas for weapons. The Defense Ministry in Moscow said it intercepted 49 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, two of them over Chuvashia.

Moscow also reported that Russian soldiers had crossed the border into the Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the goal of the advance as creating a "buffer zone." Kyiv immediately denied this: "The enemy has not entered the Dnipropetrovsk region," said the Defense Ministry. A Russian advance to the regional capital of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia would be disastrous for Ukraine. Both cities are important industrial centers and extremely important for the army's supply chain in the east and south of the country.

In northern Ukraine, Russian troops continue to advance on the regional capital of Sumy. This is primarily possible because the army and local administration have not provided adequate defense, criticized MP Marjana Besuhla on Telegram.

According to consistent statements from Russia and Ukraine, the exchange of prisoners of war agreed upon at the recent talks in Istanbul has begun. Both sides had accused each other in recent days of delaying the exchange. The Russian Defense Ministry spoke on Monday of a "first group of Russian soldiers under the age of 25" who had been released in exchange for an "equal number of Ukrainian soldiers." Neither Moscow nor Kyiv initially provided details on the exact number.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote online that the exchange would continue in "several stages over the coming days." However, he added that it was a "fairly complex process," and that negotiations were being conducted "practically day by day."

Over the weekend, Russia also called on Ukraine to accept the bodies of fallen soldiers. The exchange of 6,000 dead had been agreed upon in Istanbul. According to Russian sources, the first 1,212 bodies were brought to the exchange site, but Ukraine refused to accept them.

Critics of President Zelenskyy suspect that he is refusing to accept the fallen because doing so would mean admitting the costly failure of his invasion of the Kursk region. With agencies