Russia and Ukraine traded overnight strikes on Friday while peace talks advanced, with Moscow agreeing to let Europe join the next round and the two sides sealing the war's largest prisoner exchange.
Russian forces launched 117 drones at Ukraine overnight, killing at least nine people and injuring 61, including a strike that sparked a fire at a Kyiv trauma hospital. Attacks also hit Odesa, where two people died, Zaporizhzhia, where one was killed and nine injured, and Kharkiv, where seven were hurt. Ukrainian drones struck Russia's Volgograd and Samara regions overnight, killing four people in each.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner announced in Dublin on Thursday that Russia had agreed to let European representatives join the next round of negotiations. The announcement followed their talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ireland. "We cannot enter into this agreement without the Europeans being at the negotiating table," Kushner said. Witkoff said the next meeting of the negotiating teams has already been scheduled. The envoys confirmed that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to the largest prisoner exchange since the war began during Abu Dhabi talks on Tuesday and Wednesday. The meetings were the first such US-brokered talks since February. Russia's state-run TASS news agency said the exchange should happen in two to three weeks. The previous exchange, on October 23, involved 270 prisoners from each side.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned European leaders in Dublin against falling into a "Russian trap" by discussing security architecture before a ceasefire. "What we saw was Jared Kushner finally admitting... that for any deal between Russia and Ukraine... you also need the Europeans," she said. European leaders are debating who will represent the continent at the talks. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany is "set" to participate, while Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides suggested certain member states should be present.
Moscow has tied European participation to demands for a new security architecture. Russian officials and German media report the demands include a rollback of NATO to its 1997 borders and bans on NATO bases in the Baltic states. Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Russia wanted to begin work with American and European representatives on "a new long-term architecture of non-nuclear security and peace." Territory remains the main sticking point in the talks. Ukraine wants Russia pushed back to the original border between the two countries, while Putin wants to control all of Ukraine's Donbas region.
Zelenskyy warned that disruptions to Starshield, the SpaceX satellite network supporting Ukraine's air defenses, had allowed Russian attacks that might otherwise have been prevented. He said speed restrictions on the system made it harder for Ukraine to shoot down drones.
