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Here is where things stand on Sunday, May 25:
Fighting
- At least four people were killed and 16 others injured, including three children, after Russian forces hit Kyiv and surrounding areas in a “massive night attack”. The strikes also damaged dwellings and other buildings, officials said.
- At least four people were reported dead and five others wounded in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region, according to Sergiy Tyurin, the deputy head of the regional military administration.
- A Russian attack killed three children in Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region as Moscow unleashed massive overnight air attacks across the country, emergency services said. The victims were aged eight, 12 and 17, emergency services said, adding 10 other people were wounded.
- A man was also killed when a residential building was hit by a drone in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, the emergency services said.
- At least three people were injured in northeastern Ukraine, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said, as Russian drones hit three city districts. Blasts shattered windows in high-rise apartment blocks.
- Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 12 drones flying towards the Russian capital had been intercepted. Restrictions were imposed on at least four airports, including the main hub Sheremetyevo, the Russian civilian aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, said.
- The Russian military said on Saturday that Ukraine had targeted it with at least 788 drones and missiles since Tuesday.
- The Russian Ministry of Defence announced that its troops advancing slowly on the eastern front have captured two settlements in the Donetsk region as well as one in Ukraine’s northern region of Sumy.
- The defence ministry also claimed that its troops have taken control of the village of Romanivka also in Donetsk.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s attacks indicated Moscow was “prolonging the war” and repeated his call for ramped-up sanctions.
- The Russian Defence Ministry announced that it released an additional 307 Ukrainian prisoners of war in exchange for as many Russian servicemen, who are being cared for in Belarus before their return to Russia.
- Russia announced that it would send Ukraine its terms for a peace settlement once a “1,000-for-1,000” prisoner swap between the two was complete, without saying what those terms would be. At least two prisoner exchanges have been carried out between the two countries on Friday and Saturday.
- Ukraine announced that it had opened inquiries into the alleged executions of 268 Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian troops since their invasion in February 2022. Ukraine’s prosecutor general said it had opened 75 criminal proceedings into the 268 alleged killings.
Ukraine hit by Russian attacks as Moscow, Kyiv conclude prisoner swap
Russia has targeted Ukraine for a second consecutive night with drones and missiles, killing at least 12 people as the two countries concluded a major prisoner swap.
Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday that Russian forces attacked Ukrainian regions with 298 drones and 69 missiles overnight, one of the largest aerial attacks of the war.
“Most regions of Ukraine were affected by the hostile attack. Enemy air strikes were recorded in 22 areas, and downed cruise missiles and attack UAVs (drones) fell in 15 locations,” the air force said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s security service reported that at least four people were killed and 16 were injured in the capital, Kyiv.
The country’s emergency service reported that three children – aged eight, 12 and 17 – were killed in the region of Zhytomyr, while another person was killed in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Four others were killed in attacks across the Khmelnytskyi region, Sergiy Tyurin, the deputy head of the regional military administration, said in a post on Telegram, adding that civilian infrastructure had been destroyed.
Difficult Sunday morning in Ukraine after a sleepless night
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it had been a “difficult Sunday morning in Ukraine after a sleepless night” following “the most massive Russian air attack in many weeks”.
More than a dozen enemy drones” were in the airspace around
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported on Telegram that “more than a dozen enemy drones” were in the airspace around the capital.
He reported damage to a student dormitory in Holosiivskyi district, a house in Dniprovskyi district and a residential building in Shevchenkivskyi district.
110 Ukrainian drones shot overnight
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces shot down 110 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 12 drones flying towards the Russian capital had been intercepted.
Restrictions were imposed on at least four airports, including the main hub Sheremetyevo, the Russian civilian aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, said.
The renewed attacks followed a massive wave of attacks the previous day, with Ukraine reporting on Saturday that Russia had hit it with 250 drones and 14 ballistic missiles, while Russia said it was attacked by at least 100 Ukrainian drones.
The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that its troops took control of the village of Romanivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Prisoner swap
On Sunday, Russia and Ukraine completed a three-day prisoner of war exchange, with each side swapping 303 more detainees, according to the Russian Defence Ministry and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The two sides traded fire as they engaged in their biggest prisoner swap since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kyiv and Moscow agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners of war and civilian detainees each in talks held in Istanbul, Turkiye, earlier this month – the first time the two sides had met face to face for peace talks.
Zelenskyy and the Russian Defence Ministry said each side brought home 307 more soldiers on Saturday, a day after each released a total of 390 servicemen and civilians.
The controversial Ukrainian gunned down in Madrid
The controversial Ukrainian gunned down in Madrid
Andriy Portnov’s murder in a Madrid suburb may have been shocking, but it has not exactly triggered an outpouring of grief in Ukraine.
The controversial former official had just dropped his children off at the American School when he was shot several times in the car park.
The image of his lifeless body lying face down in gym kit marked the end of a life synonymous with Ukrainian corruption and Russian influence.
Ukraine’s media have been discussing the 51-year-old’s frequent threats to journalists, as well as his huge influence under the country’s last pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych.
“A man who called for the killing of political opponents suddenly got what he wanted from others,” observed reporter Oleksandr Holubov. News website Ukrayinska Pravda even called him “the devil’s advocate”.
Rare words of restraint came from Portnov’s once political rival Serhiy Vlasenko, an MP, who said: “You can’t kill people. When discussing someone’s death, we must remain human.”
Portnov was controversial and widely disliked. The motives for his murder may seem evident, but his death has still left unanswered questions.
‘A kingpin’
Before entering Ukrainian politics, Portnov ran a law firm. He worked with then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko until 2010, before defecting to Yanukovych’s camp when he won the election.
“It was a big story of betrayal,” remembers Ukrainian journalist Kristina Berdynskykh. “Because Tymoshenko was a pro-Western politician, and Yanukovych pro-Russian.”
The adviser became the country’s first deputy head of the Presidential Office and set up a national criminal code in 2012. For him, his critics say, his ascent was less about politics, and more about power and influence.
“He was just a good lawyer, everyone knew he was very smart,” Kristina tells me.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Ukraine inherited a judicial system in desperate need of reform. Mykhailo Zhernakov, a legal expert and head of the Dejure Foundation believes Portnov remoulded it in order for the government to cover up illegal schemes, and to mask Russian attempts to control the country.
“He was the kingpin, mastermind and architect of this corrupt legal system designed to serve the pro-Russian administration at the time,” he says.
‘A rotten system’
Over a decade, Portnov would sue journalists who wrote negative stories about him through the courts and judges he controlled. His attempts to control the judicial system would lead to him being sanctioned by the US.
At the time, Washington accused the adviser of placing loyal officials in senior positions for his own benefit, as well as “buying court decisions”.
Portnov later pursued activists who took part in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution, which toppled Viktor Yanukovych from power, and forced him to escape the country to Russia.
“He used sexual threats,” says Oksana Romaniuk who remembers her and other journalists’ interactions with Portnov well.
As director of the Institute of Mass Information, she monitors free speech in Ukraine.
Whenever a damning report was published, the reaction was familiar and consistent. “When people exposed his corruption, he accused them of fake news,” she says.
“Even when journalists had documents and testimonies backing up the allegations, it was impossible to win the lawsuits in court. It was impossible to defend yourself. It was a rotten system.”
Andriy Portnov eventually settled in Moscow after his old boss Yanukovych fled in 2014. Investigative reporter Maksym Savchuk subsequently investigated his ties to Moscow, as well as his extensive property portfolio there.
“He responded with words I don’t want to quote, derogatory ones about my mother,” he remembers. “It’s a trait of his character; he is a very vindictive person.”
Even after leaving Ukraine, Portnov still tried to influence Ukrainian politics by taking control of pro-Kremlin TV channel NewsOne.
He returned in 2019, only to flee again with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The irony of Portnov eventually settling in Spain and sending his children to a prestigious American school has not been lost on many
Alongside the undisguised delight in Portnov’s death, there has been endless speculation over who was responsible.
“It could have been the Russians because he knew so many things,” suggests legal expert Mykhailo Zhernakov.
“He was involved in so many shady Russian operations it could be them or other criminal groups. He managed to annoy a lot of people,” he says.
Despite the motives being clearer on this side of the border, Ukrainian security sources appear to be trying to distance themselves from the killing.
Kyiv has previously carried out assassinations in Russian-occupied territory and in Russia itself, but not in Spain.
Some Spanish media reports suggest his murder was not political, but rather over “economic reasons or revenge”.
“You can imagine how many people need to be interrogated in order to narrow down the suspects,” thinks Maskym Savchuk. “Because this person has a thousand and one enemies.”
In Ukraine, Portnov is seen as someone who helped Russia form the foundations for its invasion. A once general dislike of him has only been intensified since 2022.
Despite this, Mykhailo Zhernakov hopes his death is also an opportunity for wider judicial reforms.
“Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean his influence has,” he warns. “Because many of the people he appointed or helped get jobs are still in the system.”