Prisoner swap goes ahead as Kyiv mourns 24 killed in Russian strike on flats

Prisoner swap goes ahead as Kyiv mourns 24 killed in Russian strike on flats8 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleMariana Matveichuk,In KyivandPaul Kirby,Europe digital editorAFP via Getty ImagesThe prisoner exchange is described as the first stage of a swap of 1,000 people on each sideRussia and Ukraine exchanged 205 prisoners of war on Friday, hours after rescue workers ended their search of a destroyed block of flats in Kyiv in which 24 people were killed, including three girls.Most of the Ukrainian prisoners had been held since 2022, said President Zelensky.The swap was part of a short-lived ceasefire ending this week with the launch of massive Russian strikes across Ukraine, including a missile attack that reduced 18 flats to rubble. Among the victims was 12-year-old Lyubava Yakovleva, whose father was killed during the war.Meanwhile, Russian officials said four people, including a child, were killed when Ukrainian drones hit the city of Ryazan, south-east of Moscow.Images on social media showed damage to two blocks of flats, which Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said had been damaged by debris. Twenty-eight people were hurt in the attack. Ukrainian's drone commander said his forces had hit Ryazan's oil refinery - one of the biggest in Russia.Facebook/Kyiv Lyceum 323Lyubava Yakovleva, 12, was the youngest of the victims of the missile strike on KyivRescue services in the Darnytskyi district of south-east Kyiv completed their search of the rubble of a devastated nine-storey apartment block on Friday. Throughout the 28-hour operation residents and soldiers looked on, waiting for news of missing relatives.Kyiv was marking a day of mourning on Friday for the 24 victims of the strike.The Nova Poshta postal service said two of its staff, both named Dmytro, had been killed in the attack, one of them alongside his wife. Former hockey player Yuriy Orlov and his 24-year-old girlfriend Maryna Homeniuk, an English teacher, were among the victims. A kinderg...