At least five other people were killed and five others wounded in a Russian attack in eastern Ukraine, a local official said.
Vadym Filashkin, governor of the Donetsk region, said rescuers were at the scene of the attack in the city of Kostiantynivka.
Kostiantynivka is the scene of intense fighting in Donetsk, where Russian forces have been advancing for months.
The advance has accelerated in recent weeks as Moscow’s troops advance toward the key city of Pokrovsk.
Here’s the latest in Eastern Ukraine:
Ukraine will do everything in its power to force Vladimir Putin to end the war diplomatically to save time and people, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president has hinted that if this does not happen, kyiv will be in a position to do so by force.
He also replied, when asked how he foresees the end of the conflict, that it will be necessary to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Today marks Ukraine’s annual Independence Day, the third since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
No fireworks, parades or concerts are planned. Instead, Ukrainians celebrate the day with commemorations for civilians and those killed in the war.
President Zelensky gave an impassioned speech in which he said: “Independence is the silence we feel when we lose our people.
“Independence descends into the shelter of an air raid, only to suffer and rise again and again to tell the enemy: you may not achieve anything. “
Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged to “support Ukraine for as long as it takes, no matter what,” in a video released on the occasion of Ukraine’s Independence Day.
He ended the message with the national greeting “Slava Ukraini,” which glorifies Ukraine.
Images have emerged of the consequences of a prisoner exchange.
Ukrainian infantrymen are seen this morning holding flags and hugging their comrades after their arrival from the Russian government.
Meanwhile, footage released through the Russian Defense Ministry shows some of its servicemen, captured during Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, being taken by bus.
Ukraine and Russia agreed to exchange prisoners of war.
Ukrainian officials said the 115 freed servicemen were conscripts, many of whom had been taken prisoner in the first months of the Russian invasion.
Among them are about 50 infantrymen captured by Russian forces at the Azovstal metallurgical plant in Mariupol.
The Russian Defense Ministry said all 115 Russian infantrymen were captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces introduced their wonderful offensive against Russia two weeks ago.
The ministry said the infantrymen were recently in Belarus but would be taken to Russia for treatment and rehabilitation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that the UAE had negotiated the swap since February 2022.
Welcome to our war policy in Ukraine.
We will bring you the latest updates as Ukrainian forces continue to attack Russia in its Kursk region.
The two countries are expected to exchange 115 prisoners today, some of whom were captured in Kursk.
At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelensky described the Russian border as “the border between Ukraine and oppression, between and death. . . an independent European state and the world’s leading terrorist organisation” in a speech this morning.
Before we bring you more of today’s news, here’s a refresher on what happened in the last 24 hours:
For now we are ending our war policy in Ukraine.
We will be back tonight with the main developments, but in a different way, we will be back soon with the latest updates.
Here is a reminder of the occasions of the day:
Russia has reportedly deployed its troops in its advance towards Ukraine’s key strategic hub, Pokrovsk, in the eastern Donetsk region.
Although Moscow redeployed troops from other parts of Ukraine to Russia to protect itself from a Ukrainian incursion, it did not redeploy troops from its offensive to the city but reinforced them, according to The Economist.
Russian forces have been advancing on this key strategic center for months.
Capturing the city would undermine kyiv’s defensive functions and access routes, and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of controlling the entire Donetsk region.
Earlier, our military analyst Sean Bell responded to a reader’s question about whether Russia would respond to the Kursk invasion, saying that Moscow could simply focus on its offensive towards Pokrovsk.
You can learn more about it below. . .
We previously reported that criminals in a Russian penal colony had taken criminal hostages and killed one person.
Local media now claim that Russian National Guard snipers killed the four kidnappers.
The National Guard Service said the detainees had been “neutralized” and that all the hostages had reportedly been released, although the number of hostages was not specified.
Before shooting the detainees, the official TASS news agency said that four victims had been taken to a local hospital, two of them in serious condition.
Unconfirmed reports on the messaging app Telegram said one or two more people had died.
A video filmed by the attackers showed four uniformed men lying in pools of blood, three of them motionless. Another sitting in a doorway, with a knife hanging around his neck.
One guy shouted that they were Islamic State militants and that they had taken over the Volgograd region.
Other videos showed 4 men strolling through a criminal courtyard where a bloodied criminal staff member was being held hostage.
One of the prisoners appeared to be wearing an improvised explosive vest, while the others carried knives and hammers.
Russian media said the four suspects were citizens of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and that three were being held for drug offenses and the fourth for unpremeditated murder.