RUSSIA and Ukraine exchanged another 303 prisoners of war each today, in the final part of a prisoner swap that was the only substantial outcome of ceasefire talks in Istanbul.

In all, the warring countries have each sent home 1,000 captured soldiers.

But the exchange didn’t interrupt hostilities. Ukraine said another huge bombardment by Russian missiles and drones took place overnight, killing 12 people, including at least three children. Four people died in the capital, Kiev, which was struck directly.

Russia said its air defences had intercepted 110 Ukrainian drones, and also reported Ukrainian bombardment of what it termed the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” though this breakaway state — which fought to secede from Ukraine from 2014, following the Maidan coup in Kiev, until 2022 when Russia invaded — no longer exists, having been subsumed into Russia by formal annexation in the autumn of that year. The territory is still recognised by almost all UN member states as Ukrainian.

Russia also reported having pushed Ukrainian soldiers back from the border of the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a counter-invasion of Russian territory last August. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the region on Wednesday, his first trip since Moscow said it had expelled all Ukrainian forces from Russian territory last month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for more severe sanctions on Russia to force it to the negotiating table, but also attacked “the silence of America,” which has not commented on Russia’s escalating bombardment since a phone call between Presidents Donald Trump and Putin last week.