Russia and Ukraine have swapped 270 prisoners of war (POW) and 120 civilians with each other, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday.

The exchange will continue in the coming days, the ministry said.

Ukraine’s air force has released details of the latest Russian aerial attack.

They reported that Russia fired 175 attack drones overnight, as well as one Iksander ballistic missile.

The air force claimed they downed 150 drones; they shot down 91 and used electronic warfare to jam 59. This means that they felled 84 per cent of the drones fired by Russia.

At least nine regions of Ukraine suffered at least some damage.

Missile and drone monitoring groups this morning said Russia fired two more Iksanders at the southern region of Odesa.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief said Thursday that membership candidate Serbia faces a “strategic choice” of direction, just weeks after Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic defied EU warnings and attended Russia’s Victory Day parade in Moscow.

“Serbia faces a strategic, geostrategic choice, where it wants to be," Kaja Kallas said during her visit to Belgrade. “Serbia’s European future depends on the values it chooses to uphold.”

A former Ukrainian commander and ambassador to the UK said Ukraine should abandon hope of regaining all territory lost to Russia.

Valery Zaluzhnyi said in a speech that Ukraine could not dream of restoring its 1991 borders which were established when Soviet rule collapsed, or even the borders held before Russia invaded in 2022.

"I hope that there are not people in this room who still hope for some kind of miracle or lucky sign that will bring peace to Ukraine, the borders of 1991 or 2022, and that there will be great happiness afterward," Zaluzhnyi said in a speech published by the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet on Friday.

"My personal opinion is that the enemy still has resources, forces and means to launch strikes on our territory and attempt specific offensive operations.”

Zaluzhnyi was the head of Ukraine’s armed forces until he was replaced in February 2024 after months of reported disagreements between himself and Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky’s office did not immediately comment on Zaluzhnyi’s remarks.

Russia occupied the Crimea peninsula in 2014, and its armed forces now control about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian authorities have told reporters to gather at a spot in the northern Chernihiv region, ahead of an expected prisoner swap.

The prisoner swap is expected to be the largest of the war after Russia and Ukraine agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each during their first direct talks in three years last week.

Ukrainian authorities told reporters to assemble at a location, where it’s anticipated some freed prisoners would be taken.

A Ukrainian military source said the swap was still under way, however Russian state media had not yet reported the exchange was ongoing and the Russian defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russia and Ukraine each agreed after two hours of talks in Istanbul last week to swap 1,000 prisoners, but failed to agree to a ceasefire proposed by US President Donald Trump.

The prisoner swap was the only concrete step towards peace agreed to during those talks.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz asked Chinese president Xi Jinping for support in achieving a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, Merz's spokesperson said after the two leaders held a call on Friday.

“The federal chancellor reported on the joint efforts of Europe and the US to achieve an early ceasefire. He called for support for these efforts,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Top finance officials from the world's seven wealthiest democracies set aside stark differences on U.S. tariffs and agreed to counter global “economic imbalances,” a swipe at China's trade practices.

In a communiqué issued Thursday, the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors, meeting in the Canadian Rockies, left out their traditional defense of free trade and toned down their references to Russia's war in Ukraine compared with last year. But they did agree that further sanctions on Russia could be imposed if the two countries don't reach a ceasefire.

It is being reported that the first day in a three-day exchange of prisoners of war is underway between Ukraine and Russia.

US president Donald Trump jumped the gun when he posted on social media earlier today that the swap of 2,000 POWs was completed. Ukrainian officials have since said the swap is far from being done. Previous swaps have been derailed after getting underway.

According to The Times, the exchange is expected to take place at about 2pm local time, with captured soldiers and a few civilians expected to cross the Belarusian border to a location near the Ukrainian town of Chernihiv.

Russia’s top diplomat has claimed peace talks with Ukraine cannot be held in - and mediated by - the Vatican because of religious differences.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told a conference in Moscow that the Vatican would “not be quite comfortable” to host the talks between the two Orthodox Christian states.

“It is not quite elegant for Orthodox states to discuss issues related to the eradication of root causes [of the conflict] at a Catholic venue,” Lavrov said.

He repeated propagandistic claims that Ukraine is attempting to eliminate the Orthodox Church, adding that the Vatican “would not be quite comfortable to host delegations from two Orthodox countries under such circumstances”.

Last summer, Ukraine banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) after accusing them of spreading pro-Russian propaganda in time of war and of housing spies, charges it denies.

The popularity of the UOC, which is closely associated with the Russian Orthodox Church, the head of which described Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a “Holy War”, has been waning in Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression.

Earlier, we reported that US president Donald Trump claimed that a major prisoner of war swap between Ukraine and Russia had just taken place.

It is highly unusual for an official outside of the Ukraine and Russia to announce such a swap, though the agreement to exchange 2,000 POWs was made during talks in Istanbul last week partly brokered by the Trump administration.

The Financial Times, citing officials, is now reporting that the swap, as agreed in Turkey, will take place in three stages across three days. It appears the first stage of the swap has begun.