Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin launches New Year’s Day drone attack on Kyiv

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates, officials said.

Volodymyr Zelensky said 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange.

Russia’s defence ministry said that 150 Russian soldiers were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people.

The reason for the discrepancy in numbers wasn’t immediately clear.

Austria was ready for the ending of a gas transit deal between Russia and Ukraine and supplies to the country continue through other sources such as feed-in points in Germany or Italy and from storage facilities, the government said today.

“We did our homework and were well prepared for this scenario,” Austrian energy minister Leonore Gewessler said in a statement. “Austria is no longer dependent on gas from Russia – and that is a good thing,” she added.

Russia launched a drone strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early today, wounding at least three people and damaging buildings in two districts, city officials said.

Explosions boomed across the morning sky shortly after Ukraine’s air force warned of drones approaching the city.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air-defences were repelling an enemy attack, and that two floors of a residential building had been partially destroyed in the strike.

Debris had also damaged a non-residential premise in another neighbourhood, he said.

Russia has carried out regular air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities far behind the front line of its nearly three-year-old invasion.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said he has no doubt incoming US president Donald Trump is capable of achieving peace.

“I thank all Americans for proving these words with deeds. I have no doubt that the new American president is willing and capable of achieving peace and ending Putin’s aggression. He understands that the first is impossible without the second. Because this is not a street fight where you have to calm down both sides,” he said in his New Year video greeting.

He added: “This is the full-scale aggression of a mad state against a civilized one. And I believe that we, together with the United States, are capable of exerting that force. Of compelling Russia into a just peace. That means not forgetting, and not erasing everything Russia has done. Bucha, Olenivka, Avdiivka, all our destroyed towns and villages.”

Mr Zelensky also thanked the US administration for providing a wide array of critical military equipment, including 39 multiple-launch rocket systems, 301 Howitzer artillery weapons, and over 300 million units of ammunition.

Mr Zelensky also recalled conversations with outgoing president Joe Biden, and “everyone who supports us in the United States”.

The Ukrainian military said its forces had hit a Russian oil depot in the western Smolensk region, setting fire to tanks storing oil products.

Ukraine‘s general staff said on the Telegram app that the depot was used for military purposes. It did not specify the weapon used for the strike but said it was carried out in cooperation with drone forces.

Smolensk region governor Vasily Anokhin said that the attack caused a fuel spill and fire.

According to his statement on Telegram, 10 Ukrainian drones were shot down by Russian air defences but the wreckage of one of them fell on the oil facility.

Ukraine has staged numerous attacks on Russian oil storage facilities and refineries.

It is 25 years since Vladimir Putin was handed power on 31 December 1999 when Boris Yeltsin resigned, and it is something he has kept an increasingly iron grip on ever since.

While the Russian leader has repeatedly clashed with the West, Putin’s near three-year invasion of Ukraine – and the staunch support allies like Britain and the US have given Kyiv – has only intensified his threats and bellicose rhetoric.

As we move into 2025, the West has to be prepared to keep drawing Putin’s ire. Donald Trump, the US president-elect, has suggested he wants a swift resolution to the war in Ukraine once he takes office in January, and both Kyiv and Moscow have opened the door to peace talks. The UK and nations across Europe are aware that if Putin is given an inch, he will try to take a mile – so continued support for Ukraine on the battlefield is crucial.

The latest example of the consequences of Putin’s war in Ukraine beyond its borders was the first of the major air crashes in the last week – a few days before the tragic scenes in South Korea. On Christmas Day, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane flying from Baku to Grozny in the Russian region of Chechnya diverted across the Caspian Sea and crash-landed near Aktau, Kazakhstan, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.